Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Essays

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Articles about Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

Essays on various topics in Joseph Smith's plural marriages

When did plural marriage start?

Essays on various topics in Joseph Smith's plural marriages

Jump to details:

• Initiation of the practice of plural marriage
• Introduction of eternal marriage & Fanny Alger
• Did Joseph Smith have a long history of "womanizing"?
• Joseph Smith's performance of marriages in Ohio
• Age of polygamous wives
• Children of polygamous marriages
• Polyandry: Women married to more than one husband
• John C. Bennett

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Articles about Joseph Smith

Life and Character	Status in Latter-day Saint belief Joseph's trustworthiness Money digging Folk magic or the occult The Word of Wisdom Alleged narcissism
Youth	Joseph Smith's family as trustworthy and hard-working Education Use of seer stones as a youth The Hurlbut affidavits Joseph Smith's 1826 trial
Revelations and the Church	Witness of Jesus Christ First Vision Book of Mormon Joseph Smith's inspired revision of the Bible (JST) The restoration of the priesthood Personages who appeared to Joseph Smith Production of the Book of Abraham Kinderhook Plates
Prophetic Statements	The U.S. Civil War Rocky Mountain prophecy The White Horse prophecy Alleged false prophecies of Joseph Smith Joseph Smith and Old Testament practices
Society	Legal issues 1826 trial Creation of the Kirtland Safety Society Failure of the Kirtland Safety Society Campaign for President of the United States
Plural marriage (polygamy)	Plural marriage or polygamy Polygamy navigator Plural wives of Joseph Smith
Death	The Nauvoo Expositor Events surrounding the death of Joseph Smith Firing a gun at Carthage Jail Qualification as a martyr 1844 Succession to Joseph Smith

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Articles about Joseph Smith's First Vision

Accounts	Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision Multiple accounts of the First Vision Differences in First Vision accounts
Historical context	Events leading to the First Vision Events after the First Vision
Doctrinal impact	The First Vision and doctrine Seldom taught before 1877?

When did Joseph Smith receive the revelation on plural marriage?

Joseph's first introduction to the concept of plural came during the 1829 translation of the Book of Mormon

Of the little we do know, much comes from later reminiscences. Later memories are not useless, but memory can change, and can be influenced by what people later came to believe or desire. Such data must be used with caution.

There are enough scattered bits of evidence, however, that let us form some tentative conclusions.

The first specifically-LDS encounter with plural marriage was the 1829 Book of Mormon. The prophet Jacob rebuked the Nephites for their practice of having many wives and concubines. Jacob forbade this practice, and declared monogamy to be the norm unless "I will…raise up seed unto me…."

It is not clear that the early Saints contemplated any exceptions to this command in their own case, until after Joseph had taught plural marriage. As late as May 1843, Hyrum Smith (not yet converted to Joseph's plural marriage doctrine) attempted to rebut rumors of plural marriage by citing the condemnation in Jacob 2.

Evidence points to a 1831 date for the revelation to Joseph regarding plural marriage

There are no contemporaneous records which tell us when Joseph first taught plural marriage, or when he first had a revelation endorsing it. One account has Brigham Young placing the revelation to Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith in 1829 while translating the Book of Mormon.

Most scholars have rejected this early date. Brigham was not even a member at this time, so he would have heard such a story second-hand at best, and may well have misunderstood the timing. There is nothing in the Book of Mormon that portrays plural marriage positively, so there is little which would inspire Joseph and Oliver to ask questions about it, and such questioning seems to have been a prerequisite to Joseph and Oliver's early revelations on baptism, the priesthood, and other matters. The journal which records the 1829 date may be in error, since there is another, earlier record in which Brigham Young opines that Joseph had the plural marriage revelation "as early as in the year 1831."

Other evidence also points to an 1831 date. Joseph undertook his revision/translation of the Bible, and was working on Genesis in February–March 1831. Hubert Howe Bancroft was the first to suggest this theory, while Joseph Noble, B.H. Roberts, and Joseph F. Smith have agreed. The obvious approval of the polygamous patriarchs in Genesis is a more likely stimulus for Joseph's questions to the Lord about plural marriage than the Book of Mormon's generally negative view.

Joseph was probably teaching the idea of plural marriage to a limited circle by the end of 1831

The date of 1831 is reinforced by a letter written years later by W.W. Phelps. Phelps reported that on 17 July 1831, the Lord told Joseph "It is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and just." Phelps then said that he asked Joseph three years later how this commandment could be fulfilled. Joseph replied, "In the same manner that Abraham took Hagar and Keturah; and Jacob took Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpha, by revelation." Phelps' recollection is reinforced by Ezra Booth, an apostate Mormon. In November 1831, Booth wrote that Joseph had received a revelation commanding a "matrimonial alliance" with the natives, though he says nothing about plural marriage per se.

Since Joseph's explanation to Phelps came three years later, this does not help us date the receipt of the revelation specifically. It may be that Joseph did not understand the import of the July 1831 revelation any more than Phelps did. On the other hand, Orson Pratt reported that Joseph told some early members in 1831 and 1832 that plural marriage was a true principle but that the time to practice it had not yet come. Lyman Johnson also reportedly heard the doctrine from Joseph in 1831, as did a plural wife who recalled late in life that in 1831 Joseph told her that he had been commanded to one day take her as a plural wife. Mosiah Hancock reported that his father was taught about plural marriage in the spring of 1832.

Some authors have suggested that Phelps' late recollection is inconsistent with other things that he wrote earlier. Richard Van Wagoner argues that:

the Phelps letter has been widely touted as the earliest source documenting the advocacy of Mormon polygamy, [but] it is not without its problems. For example, Phelps himself, in a 16 September 1835 letter to his wife, Sally, demonstrated no knowledge of church-sanctioned polygamy: "I have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come according to the law of the celestial kingdom."

It seems, though, that the problem is more in Van Wagoner's reading of the data. Phelps says nothing about "church-sanctioned polygamy," one way or the other. He merely tells his wife that he has no right to any other woman. This was certainly true, since Joseph Smith had introduced no other men to plural marriage by September 1835. In fact, Phelps' remark seems a strange comment to make unless he understood that there were circumstances in which one could have "right to" another woman.

Joseph F. Smith gave an account which synthesizes most of the preceding data:

The great and glorious principle of plural marriage was first revealed to Joseph Smith in 1831, but being forbidden to make it public, or to teach it as a doctrine of the Gospel, at that time, he confided the facts to only a very few of his intimate associates. Among them were Oliver Cowdery and Lyman E. Johnson, the latter confiding the fact to his traveling companion, Elder Orson Pratt, in the year 1832. (See Orson Pratt's testimony.)" (Andrew Jenson, The Historical Record 6 [Salt Lake City, Utah, May 1887]: 219)

The bulk of the evidence, therefore, suggests that plural marriage was known by Joseph by early 1831. The Prophet was probably teaching the idea to a limited circle by the end of that year.

Did Joseph Smith actually teach and practice polygamy?

Some splinter groups of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have claimed that Joseph Smith did not practice polygamy. Instead, these groups argue, polygamy was the later invention of a libidinous and greedy Brigham Young. Since, on these groups’ view, plural marriage was a man-made invention instead of a commandment from the divine, this is evidence that the modern Church is in apostasy and that we must seek the true authority elsewhere. A related charge is that the Church hasn’t taught that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy openly and frequently.

There is contemporaneous, reliable documentation to establish that Joseph Smith received the revelation on plural marriage and there is ample documentation that he and many of his colleagues practiced plural marriage.

Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "Joseph Smith: Monogamist or Polygamist?"

Brian C. Hales,  Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (2017)

In the past decades much of the debate regarding Joseph Smith and plural marriage has focused on his motivation — whether libido or divine inspiration drove the process. Throughout these debates, a small group of observers and participants have maintained that Joseph did not practice polygamy at any time or that his polygamous sealings were nonsexual spiritual marriages. Rather than simply provide supportive evidence for Joseph Smith’s active involvement with plural marriage, this article examines the primary arguments advanced by monogamist proponents to show that important weaknesses exist in each line of reasoning.

Click here to view the complete article

The charts below, prepared by Brian Hales, outline all the evidence available for a polygamist Joseph in an easy-to-read way.

Video by The Interpreter Foundation.

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When and how did plural marriage begin in the Church?

Of the little we do know, much comes from later reminiscences

Of the little we do know, much comes from later reminiscences. Later memories are not useless, but memory can change, and can be influenced by what people later came to believe or desire. Such data must be used with caution.

There are enough scattered bits of evidence, however, that let us form some tentative conclusions.

The first specifically-LDS encounter with plural marriage was the 1829 Book of Mormon

The first specifically-LDS encounter with plural marriage was the 1829 Book of Mormon. The prophet Jacob rebuked the Nephites for their practice of having many wives and concubines. Jacob forbade this practice, and declared monogamy to be the norm unless "I will…raise up seed unto me…."

It is not clear that the early Saints contemplated any exceptions to this command in their own case, until after Joseph had taught plural marriage. As late as May 1843, Hyrum Smith (not yet converted to Joseph's plural marriage doctrine) attempted to rebut rumors of plural marriage by citing the condemnation in Jacob 2.

There are no contemporaneous records which tell us when Joseph first taught plural marriage, or when he first had a revelation endorsing it

There are no contemporaneous records which tell us when Joseph first taught plural marriage, or when he first had a revelation endorsing it. One account has Brigham Young placing the revelation to Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith in 1829 while translating the Book of Mormon.

Most scholars have rejected this early date. Brigham was not even a member at this time, so he would have heard such a story second-hand at best, and may well have misunderstood the timing. There is nothing in the Book of Mormon that portrays plural marriage positively, so there is little which would inspire Joseph and Oliver to ask questions about it, and such questioning seems to have been a prerequisite to Joseph and Oliver's early revelations on baptism, the priesthood, and other matters. The journal which records the 1829 date may be in error, since there is another, earlier record in which Brigham Young opines that Joseph had the plural marriage revelation "as early as in the year 1831."

Evidence also points to an 1831 date for receipt of the revelation on plural marriage

Other evidence also points to an 1831 date. Joseph undertook his revision/translation of the Bible, and was working on Genesis in February–March 1831. Hubert Howe Bancroft was the first to suggest this theory, while Joseph Noble, B.H. Roberts, and Joseph F. Smith have agreed. The obvious approval of the polygamous patriarchs in Genesis is a more likely stimulus for Joseph's questions to the Lord about plural marriage than the Book of Mormon's generally negative view.

Joseph's First Mention of the Doctrine in 1831

The date of 1831 is reinforced by a letter written years later by W.W. Phelps. Phelps reported that on 17 July 1831, the Lord told Joseph "It is my will, that in time, ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and just." Phelps then said that he asked Joseph three years later how this commandment could be fulfilled. Joseph replied, "In the same manner that Abraham took Hagar and Keturah; and Jacob took Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpha, by revelation." Phelps' recollection is reinforced by Ezra Booth, an apostate Mormon. In November 1831, Booth wrote that Joseph had received a revelation commanding a "matrimonial alliance" with the natives, though he says nothing about plural marriage per se.

Since Joseph's explanation to Phelps came three years later, this does not help us date the receipt of the revelation specifically. It may be that Joseph did not understand the import of the July 1831 revelation any more than Phelps did. On the other hand, Orson Pratt reported that Joseph told some early members in 1831 and 1832 that plural marriage was a true principle but that the time to practice it had not yet come. Lyman Johnson also reportedly heard the doctrine from Joseph in 1831, as did a plural wife who recalled late in life that in 1831 Joseph told her that he had been commanded to one day take her as a plural wife. Mosiah Hancock reported that his father was taught about plural marriage in the spring of 1832.

Some authors have suggested that Phelps' late recollection is inconsistent with other things that he wrote earlier. Richard Van Wagoner argues that:

…the Phelps letter has been widely touted as the earliest source documenting the advocacy of Mormon polygamy, [but] it is not without its problems. For example, Phelps himself, in a 16 September 1835 letter to his wife, Sally, demonstrated no knowledge of church-sanctioned polygamy: "I have no right to any other woman in this world nor in the world to come according to the law of the celestial kingdom."

It seems to me, though, that the problem is more in Van Wagoner's reading of the data. Phelps says nothing about "church-sanctioned polygamy," one way or the other. He merely tells his wife that he has no right to any other woman. This was certainly true, since Joseph Smith had introduced no other men to plural marriage by September 1835. In fact, Phelps' remark seems a strange comment to make unless he understood that there were circumstances in which one could have "right to" another woman.

Joseph F. Smith gave an account which synthesizes most of the preceding data:

The great and glorious principle of plural marriage was first revealed to Joseph Smith in 1831, but being forbidden to make it public, or to teach it as a doctrine of the Gospel, at that time, he confided the facts to only a very few of his intimate associates. Among them were Oliver Cowdery and Lyman E. Johnson, the latter confiding the fact to his traveling companion, Elder Orson Pratt, in the year 1832. (See Orson Pratt's testimony.)" (Andrew Jenson, The Historical Record 6 [Salt Lake City, Utah, May 1887]: 219)

The bulk of the evidence, therefore, suggests that plural marriage was known by Joseph by early 1831. The Prophet was probably teaching the idea to a limited circle by the end of that year.

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 1. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review))

Notes

Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Essays/Introduction of eternal marriage

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Articles about Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

Did Joseph Smith institute polygamy because he had a "voracious sexual appetite"?

It is unjustifiable to argue that he and his associates were insincere or that they were practicing their religion only for power and to satisfy carnal desires

It is claimed by some critics of Mormonism that Joseph Smith (and/or other Church members) had a voracious sexual appetite, and that because of this, he instituted polygamy.

One might reasonably hold the opinion that Joseph was wrong, but in the face of the documentary evidence it is unjustifiable to argue that he and his associates were insincere or that they were practicing their religion only for power and to satisfy carnal desires. Those who insist that "sex is the answer" likely reveal more about their own limited perspective than they do of the minds of the early Saints.

Neutral observers have long understood that this attack on plural marriage is probably the weakest of them all

George Bernard Shaw, certainly no Mormon, declared:

Now nothing can be more idle, nothing more frivolous, than to imagine that this polygamy had anything to do with personal licentiousness. If Joseph Smith had proposed to the Latter-day Saints that they should live licentious lives, they would have rushed on him and probably anticipated their pious neighbors who presently shot him.

Brigham Young matches the explanation proposed by Shaw. When instructed to practice plural marriage by Joseph, Brigham recalled that it "was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave."

John Taylor had similar opinions:

I had always entertained strict ideas of virtue and I felt as a married man that this was to me…an appalling thing to do…Nothing but a knowledge of God, and the revelations of God…could have induced me to embrace such a principle as this…We [the Twelve] seemed to put off, as far as we could, what might be termed the evil day.

Joseph knew these men intimately. He would have known their sensibilities. If it was "all about sex," why push his luck with them? Why up the ante and ask them to marry polygamously? It would have been easier for him to claim the "duty" singularly, as prophet, and not insist that they join him.

As non-Mormon church historian Ernst Benz wrote:

Mormon polygamy has nothing to do with sexual debauchery but is tied to a strict patriarchal system of family order and demonstrates in the relationship of the husband to his individual wives all the ethical traits of a Christian, monogamous marriage. It is completely focused on bearing children and rearing them in the bosom of the family and the Mormon community. Actually, it exhibits a very great measure of selflessness, a willingness to sacrifice, and a sense of duty.

Furthermore, Joseph Smith would not permit other members’ sexual misconduct

For example, he refused to countenance John C. Bennett’s serial infidelities. If Joseph was looking for easy access to sex, Bennett—mayor of Nauvoo, First Counselor in the First Presidency, and military leader—would have been the perfect confederate. Yet, Joseph publicly denounced Bennett’s actions, and severed him from the First Presidency and the Church. Bennett became a vocal opponent and critic, and all this could have been avoided if Joseph was willing to have him as a "partner in crime." The critic cannot argue that Joseph felt that only he was entitled to polygamous relationships, since he went to great efforts to teach the doctrine to Hyrum and the Twelve, who embraced it with much less zeal than Bennett would have. If this is all about lust, why did Joseph humiliate and alienate Bennett, who Joseph should have known he could trust to support him and help hide polygamy from critics, while risking the support of the Twelve by insisting they participate?

There were certainly easier ways to satisfy one’s libido, as one author noted:

Contrary to popular nineteenth-century notions about polygamy, the Mormon harem, dominated by lascivious males with hyperactive libidos, did not exist. The image of unlimited lust was largely the creation of travelers to Salt Lake City more interested in titillating audiences back home than in accurately portraying plural marriage. Newspaper representatives and public figures visited the city in droves seeking headlines for their eastern audiences. Mormon plural marriage, dedicated to propagating the species righteously and dispassionately, proved to be a rather drab lifestyle compared to the imaginative tales of polygamy, dripping with sensationalism, demanded by a scandal-hungry eastern media market.

Those who became Mormons were those who were least likely, culturally, to be thrilled at the prospect of polygamy

Douglas H. Parker wrote,

Polygamy, when first announced to the Saints, was an offensive, disgusting doctrine, difficult to accept…The men and women who placed faith in the bona fides of the revelation were Victorian in their background and moral character. The hard test of accepting polygamy as a principle revealed and required by God selected out from the Church membership at large a basic corps of faithful members who, within the next few decades, were to be subjected to an Abraham-Isaac test administered by the federal government as God’s agent.

Perhaps the best argument against the "lascivious" charge is to look at the lives of the men and women who practiced it. Historian B. Carmon Hardy observed:

Joseph displayed an astonishingly principled commitment to the doctrine [of plural marriage]. He had to overcome opposition from his brother Hyrum and the reluctance of some of his disciples. Reflecting years later on the conflicts and dangers brought by plural marriage, some church leaders were struck with the courage Joseph displayed in persisting with it. And when one recalls a poignant encounter like that between [counselor in the First Presidency] William Law and Joseph in early 1844, it is difficult not to agree. Law, putting his arms around the prophet’s neck, tearfully pleaded that he throw the entire business of plurality over. Joseph, also crying, replied that he could not, that God had commanded it, and he had no choice but to obey.

One can read volumes of the early leaders’ public writings, extemporaneous sermons, and private journals. One can reflect on the hundreds or thousands of miles of travel on missionary journeys and Church business. If the writings of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Heber C. Kimball, George Q. Cannon and many others cannot persuade someone that they were honest men (even if mistaken) then one should sincerely question whether such a person is capable of looking charitably upon any Mormon.

Paul Peterson’s comment about the diaries of Joseph Smith resonates well in this regard:

I had not fully grasped certain aspects of the Prophet’s psyche and personality. After just a few pages into Personal Writings, it became clear that Joseph possessed religious dimensions that I had not understood. For one thing, it was apparent I had underestimated the depth of his dependence upon Deity. The Joseph that emerges in Personal Writings is an intensely devout and God-fearing young man who at times seems almost helpless without divine support. And his sincerity about his prophetic calling is also apparent. If others were not persuaded of his claims, it could not be said that Joseph was unconvinced that God had both called and directed him. Detractors who claim that Joseph came to like the game of playing prophet would be discomfited if they read Personal Writings. Scholars may quibble with how true his theology is, but for anyone who reads Personal Writings, his earnestness and honesty are no longer debatable points.

Did Joseph Smith have a youthful struggle with unchastity?

There is no evidence from Joseph's early writings that he struggled over much with immoral thoughts or behavior

Some critics charge that Joseph Smith had youthful struggles with immoral actions. They claim that these are what eventually led him to teach the doctrine of plural marriage.

There is no evidence from Joseph's early writings that he struggled over much with immoral thoughts or behavior. Such an interpretation results on twisting the text, ignoring alternate possibilities, and ignoring Joseph's direct explanation of what he meant by the words which the critics twist. That they can produce nothing better strongly suggests that no evidence exists for their claim.

G. D. Smith clearly follows the Brodie tradition in painting Joseph as motivated by sexual needs. He assures us that "an examination of Smith’s adolescence from his personal writings reveals some patterns and events that might be significant in understanding what precipitated his polygamous inclination" (pp. 15–16). The reader is advised to buckle her seatbelt and put on a Freud hat.

Joseph, we are told, claims that "he confronted some uncertain feelings he later termed ‘sinful’ [a]t a time when boys begin to experience puberty" (p. 17). G. D. Smith argues that this "leav[es] us to suspect that he was referring to the curious thoughts of an intense teenager" (p. 17). G. D. Smith presumes that Joseph’s later "cryptic words" describing how he "fell into transgression and sinned in many things" refer to sex.

The only evidence for a sexual component to Joseph’s sins is presumption and mind reading

As Sigmund Freud demonstrated, any narrative can be sexualized. In this case, the only evidence for a sexual component to Joseph’s sins is G. D. Smith’s presumption and mind reading.

He presumes that the Book of Mormon reflects Joseph’s mind and preoccupations, suggesting that "an elaboration might be found in the Book of Mormon expressions about ‘the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein’ (2 Nephi 2:29)" (p. 17). Or it might not. The Book of Mormon reference to "the will of the flesh" can hardly be restricted to sexual matters. Nephi1 notes that if he errs in what he writes, "even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself" (1 Nephi 19:6). Surely this does not imply that Nephi’s mistakes in record keeping stem from sexual sin. "By the law," we find in the chapter cited by Smith, "no flesh is justified . . . , no flesh . . . can dwell in presence of God, save it be through the merits, and mercy, and grace of the Holy Messiah" (2 Nephi 2:4, 8). Clearly, "flesh" refers to unregenerate man, not specifically or merely to sexual sin.

The King James Bible, which inspired Book of Mormon language, likewise describes a Christian’s rebirth as son of Christ as "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). Clearly, the "will of the flesh" does not refer only to sexual desire, but to any carnality of the "natural man," who is an "enemy to God" (Mosiah 3:19; 16:5). Such usage has a venerable history in Christianity; it is difficult to imagine that G. D. Smith could be unaware of this.

G. D. Smith notes that Joseph admitted to being guilty of "vices and follies" and concludes, after an exegesis from Webster’s American Dictionary, that this phrase implied "sins great and small, which conceivably involved sex but were not limited to it" (pp. 17–18). His treatment of Webster is less than forthright. He quotes Webster’s second definition of vice as "‘every act of intemperance, all falsehood, duplicity, deception, lewdness and the like’ as well as ‘the excessive indulgence of passions and appetites which in themselves are innocent’" (p. 17). The first definition, however, reads simply "a spot or defect; a fault; a blemish." Smith likewise characterizes folly as "an absurd act which is highly sinful; and conduct contrary to the laws of God or man; sin; scandalous crimes; that which violates moral precepts and dishonours the offender" (pp. 17–18). Yet, again, Smith has ignored an earlier definition in Webster, which describes vice as merely "a weak or absurd act not highly criminal; an act which is inconsistent with the dictates of reason, or with the ordinary rules of prudence. . . . Hence we speak of the follies of youth."

For G. D. Smith’s interpretation to be viable, we must accept that in his personal histories Joseph was admitting serious or gross moral lapses. Yet there are other contemporary definitions for the terms that Joseph used—especially as applied to youth—that connote only relatively minor imperfections. Nonetheless, this dubious argument is the "evidence" that G. D. Smith adduces from Joseph’s personal writings.

It is a pity that G. D. Smith did not go further in analyzing Joseph’s histories. The 1838 account makes the Prophet’s intent transparent:

I frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, led me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God. In making this confession, no one need suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins. A disposition to commit such was never in my nature. But I was guilty of levity, and sometimes associated with jovial company, etc., not consistent with that character which ought to be maintained by one who was called of God as I had been.

Joseph explicitly blocks the interpretation that G. D. Smith wishes to advance. Why ought we to accept Joseph’s 1832 witness—as warped by G. D. Smith’s interpretive lens—as useful evidence while ignoring an alternative explanation supported by Joseph’s other statements? G. D. Smith all but concedes this point two pages later, when he cites Joseph’s characterization of his "vices and folleys" as including "a light, and too often vain mind, exhibiting a foolish and trifling conversation" (p. 20). If this is so, why attempt to sexualize Joseph’s admitted imperfections? But within a few pages it has become for G. D. Smith an established fact that "another revelation, almost seeming to recall [Joseph] Smith’s teenage concerns about sinful thoughts and behavior, reiterated . . . ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery; and he that commiteth adultery, and repenteth not, shall be cast out’ (D&C 42:24)" (p. 49). But such an analysis depends entirely on what G. D. Smith has failed to do—establish that the teenage Joseph struggled with sexually sinful thoughts and behavior.

G. D. Smith’s other evidence from Joseph’s teen years consists in a brief reference to the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits. Here again Smith simply cites works from the Signature stable of writers, with no gesture to source criticism or acknowledgement of the problematic elements in these later, hostile accounts.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy

Many are quick to declare that Joseph's polygamy sprang from religious extremism and/or sexual desire. This article explores the difficulties that Joseph had with plural marriage, and evidence for what truly motivated his acts.

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 15–22. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review)) Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 4–5.

Did Joseph Smith have a long history of "womanizing" before practicing plural marriage?

There is no good evidence to support the charge that Joseph was adulterous or had other "woman problems"

The charges are all late, at least second-hand, and typically gathered with hostile intent. Those making the claims are often verifiably wrong on other facts. The witnesses contradict each other, are sometimes ridiculous, and seem to be nothing but warmed-over gossip. Those who could have confirmed the stories did not. Many details bear the mark of outright fabrication.

Even more significantly, there is no contemporary account of witnesses accusing Joseph of unchastity in the Church's early years, save a single, second-or-third hand charge that was neither substantiated by those with an opportunity to do so, or repeated. Everything else is after-the-fact, often decades later. Given how anxious Joseph's enemies were to condemn him, it would be astonishing if he was known to be immoral without them noticing and taking advantage.

…the sources are not the past but only the raw materials whence we form our conception of the past, and in using them we inherit the limitations that produced them…

- Dean C. Jessee

An early date for the first plural marriage revelation (see here) makes it more difficult for critics to charge that Joseph invented the idea of plural marriage to justify his "adultery" with Fanny Alger (see here). In response, some critics have charged that Joseph had a long history of adulterous scrapes predating 1831.

They want Joseph to be seen as a rake and womanizer. But was he?

Joseph Smith faced intense opposition throughout his life. Attacks on his moral character surfaced a few years after the Church's organization, though no such charges appeared before the organization of the Church.

A key source for these claims was an apostate Mormon, Doctor Philastus Hurlbut. Hurlbut joined the Church in 1833, but was excommunicated for immoral conduct while on a mission. Hurlbut became Joseph's avowed enemy, and Joseph even brought a peace warrant (akin to our modern "restraining order") against him because of threats on Joseph's life.

Hurlbut returned to the New York area, and gathered a collection of affidavits about Joseph and the Smith family. Hurlbut's reputation, however, was so notorious, that he gave the affidavits to Eber D. Howe of Painsville, Ohio. Howe disliked the Mormons, doubtless partly because his wife and daughter had joined the Church. Howe published the first anti-Mormon book using the affidavits: Mormonism Unvailed (1834).

The Hurlbut-Howe affidavits have provided much anti-Mormon ammunition ever since. But, their value as historical documents is limited. There is evidence that Hurlbut influenced those who gave affidavits, and since some who gave them were illiterate, they may have merely signed statements written by Hurlbut himself.

That said, these charges continue to surface, and are sometimes used as a type of "introduction" to plural marriage. Critics seem to presume that because charges were made, those charges must be true to some extent—"where there's smoke, there must be at least a small fire." They then conclude that since these charges are true, they help explain Joseph's enthusiasm for plural marriage. It is difficult to prove a negative, but a great deal of doubt can be cast on the affidavits themselves, without even considering the bias and hatred which motivated their collection and publication.

Eliza Winters

One affidavit was provided by Levi Lewis, Emma Hale Smith's cousin and son of the Reverend Nathaniel Lewis, a well-known Methodist minister in Harmony. Van Wagoner uses this affidavit to argue that:

[Joseph’s] abrupt 1830 departure with his wife, Emma, from Harmony, Pennsylvania, may have been precipitated in part by Levi and Hiel Lewis's accusations that Smith had acted improperly towards a local girl. Five years later Levi Lewis, Emma's cousin, repeated stories that Smith attempted to "seduce Eliza Winters &c.," and that both Smith and his friend Martin Harris had claimed "adultery was no crime."

Van Wagoner argues that this "may" have been why Joseph left. But, we have no evidence of Levi and Hiel Lewis making the charge until the affidavits were gathered five years later. (Hiel Lewis' inclusion adds nothing; he gave no affidavit in 1833, and in 1879 simply repeated third hand stories of how Joseph had attempted to "seduce" Eliza. At best, he is repeating Levi's early tale.)

A look at Lewis' complete affidavit is instructive. He claimed, among other things, that:

• he heard Joseph admit "God had deceived him" about the plates, and so did not show them to anyone.
• he saw Joseph drunk three times while writing the Book of Mormon
• he heard Joseph say "he…was as good as Jesus Christ…it was as bad to injure him as it was to injure Jesus Christ."
• he heard Martin Harris and Joseph Smith claim "adultery was no crime."
• he heard Martin say that Joseph attempted to "seduce Eliza Winters," and that he didn't blame him.

There are serious problems with these claims. It seems extraordinarily implausible that Joseph "admitted" that God had deceived him, and thus was not able to show the plates to anyone. Joseph insisted that he had shown the plates to people, and the Three and Eight Witnesses all published testimony to that effect. Despite apostasy and alienation from Joseph Smith, none denied that witness.

The claim to have seen Joseph drunk during the translation is entertaining. If Joseph were drunk, this only makes the production of the Book of Mormon more impressive. But, this sounds like little more than idle gossip, designed to bias readers against Joseph as a "drunkard."

A study of Joseph's letters and life from this period make it difficult to believe that Joseph would insist he was "as good as Jesus Christ." Joseph's private letters reveal him to be devout, sincere, and almost painfully aware of his dependence on God.

Thus, three of the charges that are unmentioned by Van Wagoner are extraordinarily implausible. They are clearly efforts to simply paint Joseph in a bad light: make him into a pretend prophet who thinks he's better than Jesus, who admits to being deceived, and who gets drunk. Such a portrayal would be welcome to skeptical ears. This Joseph is ridiculous, not to be taken seriously.

We can now consider the claim that Martin and Joseph claimed that adultery was no crime, and that Joseph attempted the seduction of Eliza Winters. Recent work has also uncovered Eliza Winters' identity. She was a young woman at a meeting on 1 November 1832 in Springville Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. While on a preaching mission with his brother Emer, Martin Harris announced that Eliza "has had a bastard child."

Eliza sued Martin for slander, asking for $1000 for the damage done to her "good name, fame, behavior and character" because his words "render her infamous and scandalous among her neighbors." Martin won the suit; Eliza could not prove libel, likely because she had no good character to sully.

This new information calls the Lewis affidavit into even greater question. We are to believe that Martin, who risked and defended a libel suit for reproving Eliza for fornication, thinks that adultery is "no crime"? Eliza clearly has no reason to like Joseph and the Mormons—why did she not provide Hurlbut with an affidavit regarding Joseph's scandalous behavior? Around 1879, Eliza gave information to Frederick Mather for a book about early Mormonism. Why did she not provide testimony of Joseph's attempt to seduce her?

It seems far more likely that Eliza was known for her low morals, and her name became associated with the Mormons in popular memory, since she had been publicly rebuked by a Mormon preacher and lost her court suit against him. When Levi Lewis was approached by Hurlbut for material critical of Joseph Smith, he likely drew on this association.

Marinda Nancy Johnson

Van Wagoner describes another charge against Joseph:

One account related that on 24 March [1832] a mob of men pulled Smith from his bed, beat him, and then covered him with a coat of tar and feathers. Eli Johnson, who allegedly participated in the attack "because he suspected Joseph of being intimate with his sister, Nancy Marinda Johnson, … was screaming for Joseph's castration."

There is more to the story than this, however—much more. Van Wagoner even indicates that it is "unlikely" that "an incident between Smith and Nancy Johnson precipitated the mobbing." Unfortunately, Van Wagoner tucks this information into an endnote, where the reader will be unaware of it unless he checks the sources carefully.

Todd Compton casts further doubt on this episode. He notes that Van Wagoner's source is Fawn Brodie, and Brodie's source is from 1884—quite late. Clark Braden, the source, also got his information second-hand, and is clearly antagonistic, since he is a member of the Church of Christ, the "Disciples," seeking to attack the Reorganized (RLDS) Church. Brodie also gets the woman's name wrong—it is "Marinda Nancy," not "Nancy Marinda." And, the account is further flawed because Marinda has no brother named Eli.

Compton notes further that there are two other late anti-Mormon sources that do not agree with the "Joseph as womanizer" version. Symonds Ryder, the leader of the attack, said that the attack occurred because of "the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Smith." The Johnson boys are not portrayed as either leaders, or particularly hostile to Joseph. It is also unlikely that the mob would attack Sidney Rigdon as well as Joseph if the issue was one of their sister's honor, yet as Rigdon's son told the story, Sidney was the first target who received much harsher treatment:

…the mob came and got Rigdon first. He was a man weighing about 225. As they draged him some distance over the frozen ground by his heels bumping the back of his head so that when they got him to the place where they were to put the tar and feathers on him he was insensible. They covered him with tar and feathers and pounded him till they thought he was dead and then went to get J. Smith… The mob covered him with tar and feathers and pounded him till they got tired and left them both on the ground. J. Smith soon after the mob left got up and went home not very badly hurt.

Sidney was attacked until the mob thought he was dead; Joseph seems almost an after-thought in this version: someone they will pound until tired, while Sidney is beaten until thought dead.

Marinda Johnson had difficulties with plural marriage, but many years later would still testify, "Here I feel like bearing my testimony that during the whole year that Joseph was an inmate of my father’s house I never saw aught in his daily life or conversation to make me doubt his divine mission."

It is clear, then, that little remains of this episode to condemn Joseph—and Van Wagoner seems to think so too, though he caches this fact in the endnotes.

Benjamin Winchester: "Close friend" of Joseph?

Van Wagoner continues to outline Joseph's supposed pattern of problems with women:

Benjamin F. Winchester, Smith's close friend and leader of Philadelphia Mormons in the early 1840s, later recalled Kirtland accusations of scandal and "licentious conduct" hurled against Smith, "this more especially among the women. Joseph's name was connected with scandalous relations with two or three families."

There is again more to the story, and Van Wagoner again places it in the endnotes. Far from being a "close friend" of Joseph when he made the statement, Winchester was excommunicated after the martyrdom. Winchester claims he was excommunicated for being "[a] deadly enemy of the spiritual wife system and for this opposition he had received all manner of abuse from all who believe in that hellish system."

So, we have a late reminiscence, by someone who is now definitely not a "close friend and leader of Philadelphia Mormons" as he was in 1844. By his own admission, he was an excommunicate apostate and bitter opponent of plural marriage. And, all he can tell us is about rumors of "scandal" in Kirtland, and isn't even sure with whom or how many families.

Van Wagoner's habit of putting important details in the endnotes should trouble us more than these vague charges against Joseph in Kirtland—a period by which he had begun to practice plural marriage.

Winchester's other claims are not included by Van Wagoner. As with Levi Lewis' charges, the other claims demonstrate how unreliable Winchester is. He wrote that the Kirtland Temple dedication "ended in a drunken frolic." As one historian noted:

Such an accusation conflicts with many other contemporary accounts and is inconsistent with the Latter-day Saint attitude toward intemperance. If such behavior had been manifest, individuals would have undoubtedly recorded the information in their diaries or letters in 1836, but the negative reports emerged long after the events had transpired and among vindictive critics who had become enemies of the Church.

So, on issues which we can verify, Winchester is utterly unreliable. Why ought we to credit his vague, gossipy recall of early plural marriage?

Polly Beswick: The Two-Hundred Pound Domestic

The "best" sources on Joseph's early character have already been presented. The most creative, however, involves Polly Beswick, "a colorful two-hundred-pound Smith [servant who] told her friends" a tale better suited to a farce or bad situation comedy:

"Jo Smith said he had a revelation to lie with Vienna Jacques, who lived in his family" and that Emma Smith told her "Joseph would get up in the night and go to Vienna's bed." Furthermore, she added, "Emma would get out of humor, fret and scold and flounce in the harness," then Smith would "shut himself up in a room and pray for a revalation … state it to her, and bring her around all right."

One hardly knows where to start with this account. Van Wagoner notes that the story is second hand, but fails to mention that Polly is a known gossip. There is also no reference for Polly's claims—it is impossible to verify them, or know in what context they were given.

The description, however, seems totally implausible. No doubt, Emma Smith was challenged by plural marriage (see here). But, the image of Emma being petulant and then settling down once Joseph produces a "revalation" is totally out of character and quite different from how she behaved when Joseph did provide a revelation. I find this evidence utterly unconvincing and unreliable.

Martin Harris: Again?

The final source provided by Van Wagoner quotes Martin Harris from an interview purportedly given in 1873:

Martin Harris, Book of Mormon benefactor and close friend of Smith, recalled another such incident from the early Kirtland period. "In or about the year 1833," Harris remembered, Joseph Smith's "servant girl" claimed that the prophet had made "improper proposals to her, which created quite a talk amongst the people." When Smith came to him for advice, Harris, supposing that there was nothing to the story, told him to "take no notice of the girl, that she was full of the devil, and wanted to destroy the prophet of god." But according to Harris, Smith "acknowledged that there was more truth than poetry in what the girl said." Harris then said he would have nothing to do with the matter; Smith could get out of the trouble "the best way he knew how"

We should not be surprised by now that this charge has many weaknesses. To begin with, Martin Harris was not in Kirtland at the time. The interview with Martin Harris supposedly occurred in 1873; it was not published until 1888. The reader's patience is also strained when we realize that Harris had returned to the Church by 1870, and died 10 June 1875 before the interview was published. Why would Harris give a "tell-all" interview about Joseph Smith three years after being rebaptized and endowed? He was safely dead before it was published, so the author had no need to worry about Harris' reaction.

Furthermore, in this account Martin Harris is portrayed as someone who definitely did not approve of adulterous conduct. This is in direct contradiction with the Levi Lewis affidavit, which has Harris claiming that adultery is no crime.

Other witnesses in Joseph's behalf

Though there are no contemporary witnesses of Joseph's bad behavior, there are witnesses to his good character. We have already seen how Marinda Nancy Johnson also testified of Joseph's good conduct, but there are other more contemporary witnesses.

Two of Josiah Stowell's daughters (probably Miriam and Rhoda) were called during a June 1830 court case against Joseph:

the court was detained for a time, in order that two young women (daughters to Mr. Stoal) with whom I had at times kept company; might be sent for, in order, if possible to elicit something from them which might be made a pretext against me. The young ladies arrived and were severally examined, touching my character, and conduct in general but particularly as to my behavior towards them both in public and private, when they both bore such testimony in my favor, as left my enemies without a pretext on their account.

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 44. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review)) Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 4–5.

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Learn more about Joseph Smith: character

Wiki links	Early womanizer?
FAIR links	Don Bradley, "Knowing Brother Joseph: How the Historical Record Demonstrates the Prophet’s Religious Sincerity," Proceedings of the 2023 FAIR Conference (August 2023). link Gregory Smith, "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Plural Marriage* (*but were afraid to ask)," Proceedings of the 2009 FAIR Conference (August 2009). link
Online	Brian C. Hales and Gregory L. Smith, "A Response to Grant Palmer's 'Sexual Allegations against Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Polygamy in Nauvoo'," Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 12/8 (10 October 2014). [183–236] link
Video	"Joseph Smith and fraud allegations," BH Roberts Foundation print-link.
Navigators	Table of contents Abuse Bible Book of Abraham Book of Mormon CES Letter Church history Church finances Doctrine and Covenants First Vision Joseph Smith Latter-day Saint temples Mountain Meadows Massacre Plural marriage Prophets and leaders Scripture Brigham Young Joseph Smith

Stephen H. Webb: "Evidence That Demands Our Amazement... Joseph Smith was a remarkable person"

Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb wrote:

By any measurement, Joseph Smith was a remarkable person. His combination of organizational acumen with spiritual originality and personal decorum and modesty is rare in the history of religion. He was so steadfast in his ability to inspire men and women through times of great hardship that none of those who knew him could claim to fully understand him. He knew more about theology and philosophy than it was reasonable for anyone in his position to know, as if he were dipping into the deep, collective unconsciousness of Christianity with a very long pen. He read the Bible in ways so novel that he can be considered a theological innocent—he expanded and revised the biblical narrative without questioning its authority—yet he brusquely overturned ancient and impregnable metaphysical assumptions with the aplomb of an assistant professor. For someone so charismatic, he was exceptionally humble, even ordinary, and he delegated authority with the wisdom of a man looking far into the future for the well-being of his followers. It would be tempting to compare him to Mohammed—who also combined pragmatic political skill and a genius for religious innovation—if he were not so deeply Christian. [Title is Webb's.]

Notes

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Articles about Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

Joseph Smith could not have been properly convicted of adultery under the law of Illinois in 1844. Illinois law only criminalized adultery or fornication if it was "open". Had Joseph lived to face trial on this charge, he would have had good reason to expect acquittal because his relationships with his plural wives were not open, but were kept confidential and known by a relative few. Given a fair trial on this indictment, Joseph could have relied on several legal defenses.

— M. Scott Bradshaw

∗       ∗       ∗

Was polygamy illegal?

Contrary to popular belief, the plural marriages in Illinois were not illegal under the adultery statutes of the day

• Prior to the first anti-polygamy statute for the U.S. Territories (the Morril Act of 1862), no law forbade polygamy in the Great Basin region.
• Polygamy was certainly declared illegal during the Utah-era anti-polygamy crusade (i.e., from 1862 onward). The Saints refused to comply with the law during that period because they believed:

a) that the law was unconstitutional and violated their right of religious worship; and

b) that God had commanded them to practice plural marriage despite the potential legal penalties.

The Church believes in honoring and sustaining the law, but it does not believe that members must surrender their religious beliefs or conscience to the state

Not surprisingly, the question comes down to whether Joseph was a Prophet and whether God commanded his actions.

Just because some members have come up with uninformed opinions about plural marriage, is this the Church's fault? The Church doesn't include any of these claims in its manuals.

The practice of polygamy during periods when it was illegal is a clear case of civil disobedience

This is hardly new information, and Church members and their critics knew it. Modern members of the Church generally miss the significance of this fact, however: the practice of polygamy during periods when it was illegal is a clear case of civil disobedience.

The decision to defy the [anti-polygamy laws] was a painful exception to an otherwise firm commitment to the rule of law and order. Significantly, however, in choosing to defy the law, the Latter-day Saints were actually following in an American tradition of civil disobedience. On various previous occasions, including the years before the Revolutionary War, Americans had found certain laws offensive to their fundamental values and had decided openly to violate them.…Even though declared constitutional, the law was still repugnant to all [the Saints’] values, and they were willing to face harassment, exile, or imprisonment rather than bow to its demands.

Elder James E. Talmage taught that members should obey the law, unless God commanded an exception:

A question has many times been asked of the Church and of its individual members, to this effect: In the case of a conflict between the requirements made by the revealed word of God, and those imposed by the secular law, which of these authorities would the members of the Church be bound to obey?…Pending the overruling by Providence in favor of religious liberty, it is the duty of the saints to submit themselves to the laws of their country.

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

MormonThink.com website (as of 28 April 2012). Page: http://mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 3. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review))

Did Joseph Smith violate marriage laws in Ohio by performing marriages?

Joseph did not knowingly violate marriage laws in Ohio, and seems to have used his prophetic gifts to spare victims of the nineteenth-century's legal and bureaucratic immaturity unnecessary suffering

Joseph did not knowingly violate marriage laws in Ohio, and seems to have used his prophetic gifts to spare victims of the nineteenth-century's legal and bureaucratic immaturity unnecessary suffering. The secular powers honored Joseph's marriages, and provided documentation to ratify his acts. As happens so often, critics condemn Joseph Smith and the early Saints without providing the proper context for their legal choices or moral actions. As we consider the wider implementation of plural marriage in Nauvoo, such context will become increasingly important.

Plural marriage would eventually involve a complex collision of religious belief, secular law, and personal conscience. Many historians have presumed that Joseph Smith always had a cavalier attitude toward civil laws which conflicted with his marital concepts. Even before the broad implementation of plural marriage, critics point to marriages performed by Joseph in Ohio as evidence that he would readily violate secular laws.

As John Brooke put it:

Specifically prohibited from performing the marriage ceremony by the local county court, Smith brushed aside a state-licensed church elder to perform the rites of marriage between Newel [Knight] and Lydia [Bailey] himself. She was not divorced from her non-Mormon husband, so this technically bigamous marriage also challenged a broader moral code…Over the next two months Joseph Smith performed five more illegal marriages.

Brooke claims Joseph was forbidden to perform marriages, that he performed a bigamous marriage, and that he repeatedly disobeyed state marriage laws.

Michael Quinn makes the same type of claim when he opines that

in November 1835 [Joseph] announced a doctrine I call "theocratic ethics." He used this theology of justify his violation of Ohio’s marriage laws by performing a marriage for Newel Knight and the undivorced Lydia Goldthwaite without legal authority to do so…Theocratic ethics justified LDS leaders and (by extension) regular Mormons in actions which were contrary to conventional ethics and sometimes in violation of criminal laws.

Quinn's introduction of the expression "theocratic ethics" is an excellent example of his regrettable tendency to coin an expression, and then proceed as if his act of definition proves that the phenomenon he has labeled actually exists. In another context, one non-LDS reviewer of Quinn regretted this use of "rather artificial categories that acquire an aura of scholarly respectability through the magic of 'Quinnspeak.'"

Quinn's vocabulary implies that Joseph was using a different sort of ethical standard as most people—and, the term "theocratic" is loaded, since it generally has negative associations. Quinn also makes the entirely unwarranted conclusion "by extension" that Joseph's supposed irregular actions meant that a "regular Mormon" would be likewise justified in following a novel ethical scheme.

Despite such confident claims, the historical record regarding Ohio marriages disagrees with this portrait in almost every particular. Newel Knight, a young widower, wished to marry Lydia Bailey. Lydia was married to an abusive drunkard, who had abandoned her years before. Sidney Rigdon had been refused a license to marry as a Mormon minister, and so many concluded that Mormon elders would not receive state sanction to perform marriages.

Because Seymour Brunson had been a preacher prior to being a Mormon, he held a license to solemnize marriages. Brunson was thus about to perform the Knight-Bailey wedding. In what Van Wagoner calls "a bold display of civil disobedience," Joseph Smith stepped forward and announced that he would perform the marriage.

The Knight-Bailey wedding was not illegal, since Newel Knight obtained a marriage license from the secular authorities

On the surface, it appears that the critics are justified in arguing that Joseph had no right to perform marriages, and chose to do so anyway. Scott Bradshaw's research, however, found that refusing Rigdon permission to marry was "not justifiable from a legal point of view." Such a legal decision in Ohio "was rare in the 1830s, perhaps even unheard of." The court's refusal to grant Rigdon a license to marry as a Mormon minister likely stemmed from religious prejudice.

The Knight-Bailey wedding was not illegal, since Newel Knight obtained a marriage license from the secular authorities. The state of Ohio did not contest Joseph's performance of the marriage, since it then issued a marriage certificate for the Knights' marriage. Joseph later performed other marriages in Ohio, and these couples likewise received marriage certificates after Joseph submitted the necessary paperwork.

A review of Ohio state law demonstrates that Joseph's decision to perform marriages was correct

A review of Ohio state law demonstrates that Joseph's decision to marry—and his prophesy that he had the right to marry, and that his enemies would never prosecute him for marrying—was correct. Ohio's 1824 marriage law stated that "a religious society…could perform marriages without a license so long as the ceremony was done ‘agreeable to the rules and regulations of their respective churches.’"

The "rules and regulations" regarding marriage for the Church had been established since the publication of what was then D&C 101 in September 1835. The Knight-Bailey wedding did not occur until 24 November 1835, and Joseph Smith surely had the authority to perform weddings in the Church if anyone did, especially since D&C 101 declared that marriage "should be performed by a presiding high priest, bishop, elder, or priest."

When applying to the county clerk for marriage certificates of other marriages which he performed, Joseph specifically noted that they were solemnized "agreeably to the rules and regulations of the Church…on matrimony," a clear reference to the 1824 Ohio statute.

When Joseph Smith performed the marriage of Newel Knight and Lydia Bailey, were they guilty of bigamy since Lydia had not been formally divorced from her previous husband?

Lydia and Newel were aware of the prohibition on bigamy, and Lydia refused to marry Newel until they approached Joseph for his counsel

Joseph's decision to solemnize marriages was in accord with Ohio state law. Because Lydia Bailey was not divorced, however, the critics have also charged Joseph with permitting a bigamous marriage, and thus flaunting the law.

Lydia and Newel were aware of the prohibition on bigamy, and Lydia refused to marry Newel until they approached Joseph for his counsel:

Broth[er] Joseph after p[ray]or & reflecting a little or in other words enquiring [of the] Lord Said it is all right, She is his & the sooner they [are] married the better. Tell them no law shall hurt [them]. They need not fear either the law of God or man for [it] shall not touch them; & the Lord bless them. This [is the] will of the Lord concerning the matter.

Ohio law had, until just prior to their wedding, allowed spouses to remarry without formal divorce if they had been abandoned for three years

Ohio law had, until just prior to their wedding, allowed spouses to remarry without formal divorce if they had been abandoned for three years. This described Lydia's case, and Newel tried to so persuade her before speaking with Joseph. Lydia's concern about remarriage seems to have been motivated mainly by spiritual worries that it was wrong in the sight of God to remarry, even if the law might allow it.

It was doubtless because of abandonment that Newel obtained the marriage license. He was likely unaware—as, perhaps, were those who granted the license—that the law had recently changed the abandonment period to five years, and so the marriage might have been illegal on those grounds.

The Knights' predicament highlights an aspect of early nineteenth-century marriage which modern readers often ignore

The Knights' predicament highlights an aspect of early nineteenth-century marriage which modern readers often ignore. Communication in this period was difficult, travel was slow, and record keeping requirements varied widely across the United States. As a result, technical "bigamy" was a common state of affairs for all social classes at this period in American history. This made the prosecution of bigamy rare, and in cases of abandonment some spouses had to simply remarry since obtaining a formal divorce was difficult or impossible:

Since bigamy was only prosecuted on the complaint of a spouse (one whose honor had been offended or for whom the loss of support was irremediable) and when the offending spouse could be found by summons, most bigamists were probably never arrested...From the standpoint of the legal historian, it is perhaps surprising that anyone prosecuted bigamy at all. Given the confusion over conflicting state laws on marriage, there were many ways to escape notice, if not conviction.

Ohio law also required that persons seeking a divorce apply to the state supreme court, and be state residents for two years—so, on these terms Lydia would have been in violation of the law. But, it is not clear that she, Newel, or those who granted the marriage license were aware of this technicality.

Despite potentially violating some legal niceties, however, Lydia almost certainly did not engage in bigamy since her previous husband had died

Despite potentially violating some legal niceties, however, Lydia almost certainly did not engage in bigamy. Shortly after the Knights' marriage, she learned that her wastrel husband had died. The Knights viewed this as vindication of Joseph's prophetic gifts, since he had promised them that there was no moral or legal impediment to their marriage—and, he was right.

M. Scott Bradshaw: "Joseph Smith could not have been properly convicted of adultery under the law of Illinois in 1844"

M. Scott Bradshaw:

Joseph Smith could not have been properly convicted of adultery under the law of Illinois in 1844. Illinois law only criminalized adultery or fornication if it was "open". Had Joseph lived to face trial on this charge, he would have had good reason to expect acquittal because his relationships with his plural wives were not open, but were kept confidential and known by a relative few. Given a fair trial on this indictment, Joseph could have relied on several legal defenses.

Was Joseph Smith ever charged with adultery under Illinois law?

William and Wilson Law charged Joseph with adultery in the case of Maria Lawrence

Joseph Smith was, in fact, once charged with adultery under Illinois Law. This occurred shortly before his death, when Robert Foster, William Law (Joseph's former counselor in the First Presidency) and Law's brother Wilson charged Joseph with adultery in the case of Maria Lawrence. Joseph took an aggressive stance in the defense of himself and Maria, which would be surprising if Illinois law was as detrimental to his case as many have assumed.

For example, as soon as Joseph was charged, two days later he and his supporters "rode to Carthage, intent on having" the charge "'investigated.'"

Illinois law only criminalized adultery or fornication if it was "open"

It is vital to understand, however, that:

Joseph Smith could not have been properly convicted of adultery under the law of Illinois in 1844. Illinois law only criminalized adultery or fornication if it was "open". Had Joseph lived to face trial on this charge, he would have had good reason to expect acquittal because his relationships with his plural wives were not open, but were kept confidential and known by a relative few. Given a fair trial on this indictment, Joseph could have relied on several legal defenses.

Joseph's relationships with his plural wives did not meet this definition

The same author emphasized:

The term "open" in [the Illinois Criminal Code of the day] is a key element of this crime. The meaning of this term was then and still today is generally understood in law to cover conduct that is "notorious," "exposed to public view," or "visible," and which is "not clandestine." Joseph's relationships with his plural wives did not meet this definition.

Were there any similar cases under Illinois adultery statute which demonstrate that Joseph was not breaking the law?

Two cases decided after Joseph's death demonstrate that there was nothing which would have permitted conviction

Two cases decided after Joseph's death but under the same legal regime likewise demonstrate that there was nothing about Maria and Joseph's relationship (regardless of whether or not they had sexual relations) which would have permitted conviction under the Illinois adultery statute. Additionally, Stephen R. Douglas (the famed Illinois judge and later candidate for the presidency of the United States) and Thomas Ford (the governor of Illinois at the time of Joseph's murder) prosecuted adultery cases during their legal careers and both were definitive that an "open" and "notorious" aspect to the cohabitation had to be proven under the statute.

If Joseph been charged by his wife Emma with adultery, this could have served as grounds for divorce under Illinois law

By contrast, had Joseph been charged by his wife Emma with adultery, this could have served as grounds for divorce, and did not require the stringent requirements of being "open" or "notorious."

It was later realized that Illinois law would probably support the practice of Latter-day Saint plural marriage, so they changed the wording of the law

Even Joseph's near-contemporaries would later realize that Illinois law would probably support the practice of Latter-day Saint plural marriage, perhaps even if done so openly.

Recognizing the breadth of [the] state constitutional provision [for religious freedom] as it stood in 1844, Illinois adopted a new constitution in 1869 that introduced a number of changes in the clause governing religious liberty, including wording specifically intended to give the state authority to prohibit Mormon polygamy or other religiously-based practices that might be deemed offensive. Comments by certain delegates to the 1869 Illinois Constitutional Convention show taht there was a concern that the Mormon practice of plural marriage could be protected under the state constitution....

Several delegates expressed support for changes in the wording of the Illinois constitution in order to protect the state from what they viewed as extreme forms of worship, including Mormon polygamy. These delegates feared that the more liberal wording of the earlier constitution (in force in Joseph's day) might actually protected practices such as polygamy. One such delegate was Thomas J. Turner...[who] stated:"...Mormonism is a form of religion 'grant it, a false religion' nevertheless, it claims to be the true Christian religion...[d]o we desire that the Mormons shall return to our State, and bring with them polygamy?"

Gregory L. Smith, M.D., "Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication: Frequently and Rarely Asked Questions about the Initiation, Practice, and Cessation of Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"

Gregory L. Smith, M.D.,  FairMormon Papers, (2005)

Critics charge that Joseph Smith and his successors made repeated public statements in which they hid or frankly denied the practice of polygamy, despite knowledge to the contrary. It is argued that this dishonesty is morally dubious and inconsistent with the Church’s purported principles.

The concept of "civil disobedience" is essential to understanding those occasions in which Joseph Smith or other Church members were not forthright about the practice of polygamy.
Like obedience to civil law, honesty and integrity are foundational values to the Church of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the success which critics have in troubling members of the Church with tales of polygamy and its deceptive circumstances is, in a way, a compliment to the Church. If the Church as an institution typically taught its members to have a casual disregard for the truth, a discovery that Joseph Smith had deceived others about polygamy would not be troubling to most. But, because the Church (contrary to the suggestions of some critics) really does teach its members to aspire to live elevated lives of moral rectitude, the discovery that deception was involved with polygamy can come as something of a shock. Disillusionment can ensue if we follow the critics in assuming that because Joseph occasionally misled others in this specific context, he must therefore have lied about everything else, and been absolutely unworthy of trust.

But, as we have seen, the practice of polygamy must be viewed in its moral context as an act of religious devotion which the Saints were unwilling to forego simply because the state or society disapproved.

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Joseph Smith's Polygamy: "1840—Plural Marriage Secretly Introduced", by Brian C. Hales

Summary: Sometime in 1840 Joseph Smith first broached the topic of plural marriage privately to trusted friends. Most of the apostles were in England and thus were unavailable for an introduction to the practice.

(Click here for full article)

Was there ever a consummation of the sealing between Maria Lawrence and Joseph Smith?

Although under law, Joseph Smith and Maria Lawrence were not guilty of adultery, this does not mean that they had not consummated their plural marriage

A side issue raised by some relates to what the legal strategy can tell us about the status of Joseph and Maria's sealing. Under law, Joseph and Maria were clearly not guilty of adultery. This does not mean, however, that they had not consummated their plural marriage.

Most authors have concluded that their marriage was one which was consummated. This is due to relatively late, second-hand testimony, which Brian Hales has explored in detail.

Bradshaw suggests:

Joseph instructed John Taylor on June 4, [1844] to initiate legal action against the Laws and Foster for perjury and slander against Maria [for charging her and Joseph with adultery]. No such suit is known to have been filed, since Joseph was killed three weeks later; however, the mere fact that Joseph planned to bring such a suit suggests that, in Joseph's mind, there was nothing to hide in his relationship with Maria. If there had been a sexual dimension to this particular plural marriage, it is almost unimaginable that Joseph would have wanted to file a lawsuit, knowing that Maria might be put on the witness stand—or even subjected to a gynecological examination [to determine whether or not she was a virgin]. The possibility that Joseph's relationship with Maria Lawrence did not involve intimacy is also plausible given his comments regarding the publication of the Expositor: "They make it a criminality for a man to have one wife on earth while he has one wife in heaven." Since the only specific allegation of "criminality" (the adultery indictment) with respect to Joseph's plural marriages concerned Maria Lawrence, this statement by Joseph could be understood as a reference to his spiritual connection, or sealing, with Maria, but perhaps no more.

In the same vein, Madsen argues:

The consequences of such an indictment [for adultery with Maria] were both legally and socially scandalous. Maria Lawrence's reputation would have been publicly damaged, independent of what the reputational consequences might have been to Joseph. She and her sister had been sealed to Joseph on May 11, 1843...with Emma's initial consent but later repudiation. Even if this celestial marriage could have been made [publicly] known, it would not have alleviated the scandal—it would have just turned it to another, even more flamboyant, direction....

This plan to counter-sue against the Laws and others has some interesting legal aspects. William Law had supplied testimony under oath that led to Joseph's indictment. If the adultery case had gone to trial and the jury had found Joseph not guilty, then Law would have been liable to a criminal charge of perjury and civil liability for slander. Possibly Joseph planned to prove his innocence, not only by his and Maria's denial of sexual intercourse but also by the testimony of a reputable physician who had conducted a physical examination and found that Maria was still a virgin. It would have been both foolhardy and fruitless for Joseph to have even imagined countersuing without something of such weight to present at trial.

Hales, however, feels that the scenario offered by Madsen and Bradshaw is less likely:

This speculation is problematic because, since Maria was sealed to Joseph in a "time and eternity" sealing, then sexual relations would be permitted. In addition, virginity cannot always be proven by physical exam even if the woman has never experienced intercourse.

Gregory L. Smith, M.D., "Polygamy, Prophets, and Prevarication: Frequently and Rarely Asked Questions about the Initiation, Practice, and Cessation of Plural Marriage in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"

Gregory L. Smith, M.D.,  FairMormon Papers, (2005)

Critics charge that the Church and its members participated in polygamy in violation of both state and federal laws. It is therefore argued that the Church abandoned its commitment to “obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” Critics, however, make such arguments without a full understanding of the legal considerations of the day and without understanding how civil disobedience plays into the picture.

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Notes

Joseph Smith/Polygamy/Essays/Age of wives

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Articles about Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

Can you summarize what we know about whether or not Joseph Smith fathered any children by his plural wives?

The record is frustratingly incomplete regarding the question of which marriages were consummated, it is likewise spotty with regards to whether Joseph fathered children by his plural wives

The record is frustratingly incomplete regarding the question of which marriages were consummated, it is likewise spotty with regards to whether Joseph fathered children by his plural wives. Fawn Brodie was the first to consider this question in any detail, though her standard of evidence was depressingly low. Subsequent authors have returned to the problem, though unanimity has been elusive (see Table 1). Ironically, Brodie did not even mention the case of Josephine Lyon, now considered the most likely potential child of Joseph.

Table 11‑1 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage

Key:

• NM = Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 2nd edition (1971);
• Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy" (1975);
• VW=Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 2nd edition (1989);
• Fo = Foster, Religion and Sexuality (1984);
• Co = Compton, In Sacred Loneliness (1997);
• Be = Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists," (2005);
• Ha = Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy (2013).

Notation:

• Y – indicates the author considers the child a possible child of Joseph Smith, Jr.
• N - indicates that author argues against this child being Joseph's child, or lists someone else as the father.
• Ø - indicates that author does not mention the possibility (pro or con) of this being Joseph's child.

Endnote links for above table

Did Joseph Smith father any children through polygamous marriages?

Science has eliminated most of the possibilities that had long been rumored to be descendants of Joseph Smith. There are a couple for which DNA can tell us nothing either way and that rest on dubious historical reasoning. Thus critics cannot claim in honesty that Joseph had any children by his polygamous wives.

It is claimed that Joseph Smith fathered children with some of his plural wives, and that he covered up the evidence of pregnancies. It is also claimed that Joseph Smith had intimate relations with other men’s wives to whom he had been sealed, and that children resulted from these unions.

Critics of Joseph Smith have long had difficulty reconciling their concept of Joseph as a promiscuous womanizer with the fact that the only recorded children of the prophet are those that he had with Emma. Science is now shedding new light on this issue as DNA research has eliminated most of the possibilities that had long been rumored to be descendants of Joseph Smith. In the case of at least two, however, DNA cannot tell us either way. The historical reasoning for justifying that Joseph had children by these wives is dubious.

Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives?: The case for children

Josephine Fisher (Josephine Lyon)

DNA analysis has determined that Josephine Fisher is not a descendant of Joseph Smith, Jr., but for many years she appeared to be the strongest possibility. The resolution of this question was difficult to resolve until the appropriate DNA analysis techniques became available. These findings have been replicated in non-Latter-day Saint, peer-reviewed, reputable journals.

The case of Josephine Fisher relied on a deathbed conversation:

Just prior to my mothers death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days were about numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret from me and from all others but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith….

Perhaps significantly, Josephine's name shares a clear link with Joseph's. Whether this account proved that she was his biological daughter had long been debated:

Rex Cooper…has questioned the interpretation that Smith was Fisher's biological father. He posits that because Fisher's mother was sealed to Smith, Fisher was his daughter only in a spiritual sense…More problematic is whether there is a discrepancy between what Fisher understood and what her mother meant. That is, did Fisher interpret her mother's remarks to mean she was the biological daughter of Joseph Smith and thus state that with more certitude than was warranted, when in fact her mother meant only that in the hereafter Fisher would belong to Joseph Smith's family through Session's sealing to him? Because Sessions was on her deathbed, when one's thoughts naturally turn to the hereafter, the latter is a reasonable explanation.

As Danel Bachman notes, however, there seems to be relatively little doubt that

[t]he desire for secrecy as well as the delicacy of the situation assure us that Mrs. Sessions was not merely explaining to her daughter that she was Smith's child by virtue of a temple sealing. The plain inference arising from Jenson's curiosity in the matter and Mrs. Fisher's remarks is that she was, in fact, the offspring of Joseph Smith.

However, DNA evidence now disproves this theory. It is possible, then, that Fisher misunderstood her mother, but this seems unlikely. Any unreliability is more likely to arise because of a dying woman's confusion than from miscommunication. No evidence exists for such confusion, though we cannot rule it out.

Josephine's account is also noteworthy because her mother emphasizes that "…she [had] been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon was out of fellowship with the Church." This may explain her reasoning for being sealed to Joseph at all—her husband was out of fellowship. Todd Compton opines that "[i]t seems unlikely that Sylvia would deny [her husband] cohabitation rights after he was excommunicated," but this conclusion seems based on little but a gut reaction. These women took their religion seriously; given Sylvia's deathbed remarks, this was a point she considered important enough to emphasize. She apparently believed it would provide an explanation for something that her daughter might have otherwise misunderstood.

There is also clear evidence that at least some early members of the Church would have taken a similar attitude toward sexual relations with an unbelieving spouse. My own third-great grandfather, Isaiah Moses Coombs, provides a striking illustration of this from the general membership of the Church.

Coombs had immigrated to Utah, but his non-member spouse refused to accompany him. Heartsick, he consulted Brigham Young for advice. Young "sat with one hand on my knee, looking at my face and listen[ing] attentively." Then, Young took the new arrival "by the hand in his fatherly way," and said "[Y]ou had better take a mission to the States…to preach the gospel and visit your wife…visit your wife as often as you please; preach the gospel to her, and if she is worth having she will come with you when you return to the valley. God bless and prosper you."

Coombs did as instructed, but was not successful in persuading his wife. His description of his thoughts is intriguing, and worth quoting at length:

I may as well state here, however, that during all my stay in the States, [my wife and I] were nothing more to each other than friends. I never proposed or hinted for a closer intimacy only on condition of her baptism into the Church. I felt that I could not take her as a wife on any other terms and stand guiltless in the sight of God or my own conscience…I could not yield to her wishes and she would not bend to mine. And so I merely visited her as a friend. This was a source of wonder to our mutual acquaintances; and well it might be for had not my faith been founded on the eternal rock of Truth, I never could have stood such a test, I never could have withstood the temptations that assailed me, but I should have yielded and have abandoned myself to the life of carnal pleasure that awaited me in the arms of my beautiful and adored wife. She was now indeed beautiful. I had thought her lovely as a child—as a maiden she had seemed to me surpassing fair, but as a woman with a form well developed and all the charms of her persona matured, she far surpassed in womanly beauty anything I had ever dreamed of.

Coombs' account is startlingly blunt and explicit for the age. Yet, if this young twenty-two-year-old male refused marital intimacy with his wife (whom he married knowing their religious differences), Compton's confidence that Sylvia Sessions would not deny marital relations to her excommunicated husband seems misplaced. Sessions may, like Coombs, have seen her faithfulness to the sealing ordinances sufficient to "eventually either in this life or that which is to come enable me to bind my [spouse] to me in bands that could not be broken." Like him, she may have believed that "[My spouse] was blind then but the day would come when [he] would see."

More importantly, however, is Brian Hales’ more recent work, which demonstrates that Sylvia Sessions Lyon may well have not been married to her husband when sealed to Joseph Smith, contrary to Compton’s conclusion. Thus, rather than being a case of polyandry with sexual relations with two men (Joseph and her first husband) Lyons is instead a case of straight-forward plural marriage. Given that Joseph has been ruled out as Josephine's father, it may be that Sylvia's emphasis to Josephine about being Joseph's "daughter" referred to a spiritual or sealing sense, and she wished to explain to her daughter why Josephine was, then, sealed to Joseph Smith rather than her biological father.

Other possible children

Olive Gray Frost is mentioned in two sources as having a child by Joseph. Both she and the child died in Nauvoo, so no genetic evidence will ever be forthcoming.

Did Joseph Smith produce any children by his plural wives? The case against children

Angus M. Cannon seems to have been aware of Fisher's claim to be a child of Joseph Smith, though only second hand. He told a sceptical Joseph Smith III of

one case where it was said by the girl's grandmother that your father has a daughter born of a plural wife. The girl's grandmother was Mother Sessions, who lived in Nauvoo and died here in the valley. Aunt Patty Sessions asserts that the girl was born within the time after your father was said to have taken the mother.

Clearly, Cannon has no independent knowledge of the case, but reports a story similar to Josephine's affidavit. Cannon's statement is more important because it illustrates how the LDS Church's insistence that Joseph Smith had practiced plural marriage led some of the RLDS Church :to ask why no children by these wives existed. Lucy Walker reported [the RLDS] seem surprised that there was no issue from asserted plural marriages with their father. Could they but realize the hazardous life he lived, after that revelation was given, they would comprehend the reason. He was harassed and hounded and lived in constant fear of being betrayed by those who ought to have been true to him. Thus the absence of children was something of an embarrassment to the Utah Church, which members felt a need to explain. It would have been greatly to their advantage to produce Joseph's offspring, but could not.

Anxious to demonstrate that Joseph's plural marriages were marriages in the fullest sense, Lucy M. Walker (wife of Joseph's cousin, George A. Smith) reported seeing Joseph washing blood from his hands in Nauvoo. When asked about the blood, Joseph reportedly told her he had been helping Emma deliver one of his plural wives' children. Yet, even this late account tells us little about the paternity of the children—Joseph was close to these women (and their husbands, in the case of polyandry), and given the Saints' belief in priesthood blessings, they may have well welcomed his involvement.

George Algernon Lightner and Florentine M. Lightner

Even by the turn of the century, the LDS Church had no solid evidence of children by Joseph. "I knew he had three children," said Mary Elizabeth Lightner, "They told me. I think two of them are living today but they are not known as his children as they go by other names." Again, evidence for children is frustratingly vague—Lightner had only heard rumours, and could not provide any details. It would seem to me, however, that this remark of Lightner's rules out her children as possible offspring of Joseph. Her audience was clearly interested in Joseph having children, and she was happy to assert that such children existed. If her own children qualified, why did she not mention them?

Orson W. Hyde and Frank Henry Hyde

Two of Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde's children have been suggested as possible children. The first, Orson, died in infancy, making DNA testing impossible. Compton notes, however, that "Marinda had no children while Orson was on his mission to Jerusalem, then became pregnant soon after Orson returned home. (He arrived in Nauvoo on December 7, 1842, and Marinda bore Orson Washington Hyde on November 9, 1843)," putting the conception date around 16 February 1843.

Frank Hyde's birth date is unclear; he was born on 23 January in either 1845 or 1846. This would place his conception around 2 May, of either 1844 or 1845. In the former case, Frank was conceived less than two months prior to Joseph's martyrdom. Orson Hyde left for Washington, D.C., around 4 April 1844, and did not return until 6 August 1844, making Joseph's paternity more likely than Orson's if the earlier birth date is correct. The key source for this claim is Fawn Brodie, who includes no footnote or reference. Given Brodie's tendency to misread evidence on potential children, this claim should be approached with caution.

Frank's death certificate lists Orson Hyde as the father, however, and places his birth in 1846, which would require conception nearly a year after Joseph's death. A child by Joseph would have brought prestige to the family and Church, and Orson and Nancy had divorced long before Frank Henry's death. It seems unlikely, therefore, that Orson would be credited with paternity over Joseph if any doubt existed. Without further data, Brodie's dating should probably be regarded as an error, ruling out Joseph as a possible father.

Ruled out by DNA Evidence: Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, John Reed Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Llewllyn Pratt, and Orrison Smith

Scientific ingenuity has also been applied to the question of Joseph's paternity. Y-chromosome studies have conclusively eliminated Orrison Smith (son of Fanny Alger), Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, John Reed Hancock, Moroni Llewellyn Pratt, and Oliver Buell as Joseph's offspring.

Two additional children—George Algernon Lightner and Orson W. Hyde—died in infancy, leaving no descendants to test, though as noted above Lightner can probably be excluded on the basis of his mother's testimony.

The testing of female descendants' DNA is much move involved, but work continues and may provide the only definitive means of ruling in or out potential children.

The case of Oliver Buell is an interesting one, since Fawn Brodie was insistent that he was Joseph's son. She based part of this argument on a photograph of Buell, which revealed a face which she claimed was "overwhelmingly on the side of Joseph's paternity." A conception on this date would make Oliver two to three weeks overdue at birth, which makes Brodie's theory less plausible.

Furthermore, prior the DNA results, Bachman and Compton pointed out that Brodie's timeline poses serious problems for her theory—Oliver's conception would have had to occurred between 16 April 1839 (when Joseph was allowed to escape during a transfer from Liberty Jail) and 18 April, when the Huntingtons left Far West. Brodie would have Joseph travel west from his escape near Gallatin, Davies County, Missouri, to Far West in order to meet Lucinda, and then on to Illinois to the east. This route would require Joseph and his companions to backtrack, while fleeing from custody in the face of an active state extermination order in force. Travel to Far West would also require them to travel near the virulently anti-Mormon area of Haun's Mill, along Shoal Creek. Yet, by 22 April Joseph was in Illinois, having been slowed by travel "off from the main road as much as possible" "both by night and by day." This seems an implausible time for Joseph to be meeting a woman, much less conceiving a child. Furthermore, it is evident that Far West was evacuated by other Church leaders, "the committee on removal," and not under the prophet’s direction, who did not regain the Saints until reaching Quincy, Illinois.

Brodie's inclusion of Oliver Buell is also inconsistent, since he was born prior to Joseph's sealing to Prescinda. By including Oliver as a child, Brodie wishes to paint Joseph as an indiscriminate womanizer. Yet, her theory of plural marriage argues that Joseph "had too much of the Puritan in him, and he could not rest until he had redefined the nature of sin and erected a stupendous theological edifice to support his new theories on marriage." Thus, Brodie argues that Joseph created plural marriage to justify his immorality—yet, she then has him conceiving a child with Prescinda before being sealed to her. By her own argument, the paternity must therefore be seen as doubtful.

Despite Brodie's enthusiasm, no other author has included Oliver on their list of possible children (see Table 1). And, DNA evidence has conclusively ruled him out. Oliver is an excellent example of Brodie's tendency to ignore and misread evidence which did not fit her preconceptions, and suggests that caution is warranted before one condemns Joseph for a pre-plural marriage "affair" or other improprieties. Since Brodie was not interested in giving Joseph the benefit of the doubt, or avoiding a rush to judgment, her decision is not surprising.

John Reed Hancock is another of Brodie's suggestions, though no other author has followed her. The evidence for Joseph having married Clarissa Reed Hancock is scant, and as with Oliver Buell it is unlikely (even under Brodie's jaded theory of plural marriage as justification for adultery) that Joseph would have conceived a child with a woman to whom he was not polygamously married. DNA testing has since confirmed our justified scepticism of Brodie's claim.

John Hyrum Buell, Son of Prescinda Huntington Buell

Bachman mentions a "seventh child" of Prescinda's, likely John Hyrum Buell, for whom the timeline would better accommodate conception by Joseph Smith. There is no other evidence for Joseph's paternity, however, save Ettie V. Smith's account in the anti-Mormon Fifteen Years Among the Mormons (1859), which claimed that Prescinda said she did not know whether Joseph or her first husband was John Hyrum's father. As Compton notes, such an admission is implausible, given the mores of the time.

Besides being implausible, Ettie gets virtually every other detail wrong—she insists that William Law, Robert Foster, and Henry Jacobs had all been sent on missions, only to return and find their wives being courted by Joseph. Ettie then has them establish the Expositor. While Law and Foster were involved with the Expositor, they were not sent on missions, and their wives did not charge that Joseph had propositioned them. Jacobs had served missions, but was present during Joseph's sealing to his wife, and did not object (see Chapter 9). Jacobs was a faithful Saint unconnected to the Expositor.

Even the anti-Mormon Fanny Stenhouse considered Ettie Smith to be a writer who "so mixed up fiction with what was true, that it was difficult to determine where one ended and the other began," and a good example of how "the autobiographies of supposed Mormon women were [as] unreliable" as other Gentile accounts, given her tendency to "mingl[e] facts and fiction" "in a startling and sensational manner."

Brodie herself makes no mention of John Hyrum as a potential child (and carelessly misreads Ettie Smith's remarks as referring to Oliver, not John Hyrum). No other historian has even mentioned this child, much less argued that Buell was not the father (see Table 1).

Scant evidence: Sarah Elizabeth Holmes, Hannah Ann Dibble, Loren Walker Dibble, Joseph Albert Smith, and Carolyn Delight

A few other possibilities should be mentioned, though the evidence surrounding them is tenuous. Sarah Elizabeth Holmes was born to Marietta Carter, though "No evidence links her with Joseph Smith." The Dibble children suffer from chronology problems, and a lack of good evidence that Joseph and their mother was associated. Loren Dibble was, however, claimed by some Mormons as a child of Joseph’s when confronted with Joseph Smith III’s skepticism.

Joseph Albert Smith was born to Esther Dutcher, but the available evidence supports her polyandrous sealing to Joseph as for eternity only. Carolyn Delight has no evidence at all of a connection to Joseph—the only source is a claim to Ugo Perego, a modern DNA researcher. No textual or documentary evidence is known for her at all.

Fanny Alger and Eliza R. Snow: Miscarriages?

We have elsewhere seen the tenuous basis for many conclusions about the Fanny Alger marriage (see here and here). The first mention of a pregnancy for Fanny is in an 1886 anti-Mormon work, citing Chauncey Webb, with whom Fanny reportedly lived after leaving the Smith home. Webb claimed that Emma "drove" Fanny from the house because she "was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet." If Fanny was pregnant, it is curious that no one else remarked upon it at the time, though it is possible that the close quarters of a nineteenth-century household provided Emma with clues. If Fanny was pregnant by Joseph, the child never went to term, died young, or was raised under a different name.

A family tradition—repeated by anti-Mormon Wyl—holds that Eliza R. Snow was pregnant and shoved down the stairs by a jealous Emma before being required to leave the Smith home. The tradition holds that Eliza, "heavy with child" subsequently miscarried. While Eliza was required to leave the home and Emma was likely upset with her, no contemporary evidence points to a pregnancy. Eliza's diary says nothing about the loss of a child, which would be a strange omission given her love of children. It seems unlikely that Eliza would have still been teaching school in an advanced state of pregnancy, especially given that her appearance as a pregnant "unwed mother" would have been scandalous in Nauvoo. Emma's biographers note that "Eliza continued to teach school for a month after her abrupt departure from the Smith household. Her own class attendance record shows that she did not miss a day during the months she taught the Smith children, which would be unlikely had she suffered a miscarriage." Given Emma's treatment of the Partridge sisters, who were also required to leave the Smith household, Emma certainly needed no pregnancy to raise her ire against Joseph's plural wives.

Eliza repeatedly testified to the physical nature of her relationship with Joseph Smith (see Chapter 9), and was not shy about criticizing Emma on the subject of plural marriage. Yet, she never reported having been pregnant, or used her failed pregnancy as evidence for the reality of plural marriage.

In the absence of further information, both of these reported pregnancies must be regarded as extremely speculative.

What did the husband of Sylvia Sessions know about her sealing to Joseph Smith for eternity?

Sylvia was married to Windsor Lyon by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, and was sealed to Joseph Smith at some point after she was married

Sylvia was married to Windsor Lyon by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo. She was sealed to Joseph Smith at some point after she was married. Brian Hales notes that , "This marriage triangle is unique among all of the Prophet’s plural marriages because there is strong evidence that Sylvia bore children to both men. She became pregnant by Windsor Lyon in October of 1838, September of 1840, and April of 1842. Then a year later became pregnant with a daughter (named Josephine—born February 8, 1844) that was purportedly fathered by the Prophet." Sylvia's daughter, who had the intriguing name "Josephine," made the following statement:

Just prior to my mothers [Sylvia Sessions Lyon] death in 1882 she called me to her bedside and told me that her days on earth were about numbered and before she passed away from mortality she desired to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret fro me and from others until no but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith, she having been sealed to the Prophet at the time that her husband Mr. Lyon had was out of fellowship with the Church.

Daughter Josephine was proven not to be a daughter of Joseph Smith, Jr. through DNA analysis

For many years, Josephine appeared to be the only viable candidate as a child of Joseph Smiths "polyandrous" sealings. However, DNA analysis ultimately disproved the paternity claim: Josephine was not a descendant of Joseph Smith, Jr.

Sylvia may have considered herself divorced from Windsor after he was excommunicated from the Church

It appears, however, that Sylvia may have considered herself divorced from Windsor after he was excommunicated from the Church and left Nauvoo. Hales points out that "Currently, no documentation of a legal divorce between Windsor and Sylvia after his excommunication has been found. However, in the mid-nineteenth century, religious laws often trumped legal proceedings. Stanley B. Kimball observed: 'Some church leaders at that time considered civil marriage by non-Mormon clergymen to be as unbinding as their baptisms. Some previous marriages . . . were annulled simply by ignoring them.'" The sealing to Joseph occurred after Windor's excommunication. Andrew Jenson, in his historical record, referred to Sylvia as a "formerly the wife of Windsor Lyons." There is no known evidence that Windsor lived with Sylvia after he returned to Nauvoo, but Sylvia did "rejoin" Windsor after he was rebaptised in 1846. Hales states, "No details are available to clarify what authority was used to reconfirm the marriage relationship between Sylvia and Windsor after their previous marital separation. Most likely the couple consulted with Brigham Young or Heber C. Kimball, who authorized their rejoining. Whether a private religious marriage ceremony for time was performed or the couple resumed observing their legal marriage is unknown. Importantly, even with the renewed conjugality between Windsor and Sylvia after Joseph Smith’s death, no evidence has been found to support her involvement in sexual polyandry at any time."

Did Prescindia Buell (or Sarah Pratt, or Mrs. Hyde) not know who was the father of her son?

The source for this claim is a notoriously unreliable anti-Mormon work. It makes several errors of fact in the very paragraph in which the claim is made

It is claimed that Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell admitted that she did not know who was the father of her child—Joseph Smith or her first husband. Sometimes Sarah Pratt (wife of apostle Orson Pratt) is mistakenly identified as the woman in this story. Others sometimes mention Orson Hyde's wife as the source of this rumor.

The source for this claim is a notoriously unreliable anti-Mormon work. It makes several errors of fact in the very paragraph in which the claim is made.

It is implausible that the supposed admission upon which the claim is based would be made. There are major historical problems of geography and timeline for Joseph to have even been a potential father of Buell's child.

The claim cannot be substantiated.

Is the source reliable?

This book was written by Nelson Winch Green, who reported what estranged member Marry Ettie V. Coray Smith reportedly told him.

Even other anti-Mormon authors who had lived in Utah regarded it as nearly worthless. Fanny Stenhouse wrote:

Much has already been written on this subject much that is in accordance with facts, and much that is exaggerated and false. Hitherto, with but one exception [Mrs. Ettie V. Smith is noted in the footnote as the work referred to] that of a lady who wrote very many years ago, and who in her writings, so mixed up fiction with what was true, that it was difficult to determine where the one ended and the other began no woman who really was a Mormon and lived in Polygamy ever wrote the history of her own personal experience. Books have been published, and narratives have appeared in the magazines and journals, purporting to be written by Mormon wives; it is, however, perhaps, unnecessary for me to state that, notwithstanding such narratives may be imposed upon the Gentile world as genuine, that they were written by persons outside the Mormon faith would in a moment be detected by any intelligent Saint who took the trouble to peruse them.

So, we must remember that this work is not regarded as generally reliable today, and it was not regarded as reliable even by the Church's enemies in the 19th century.

The claim

The source for this claim is an anti-Mormon book. The relevant passage reads:

The Prophet had sent some time before this, three men, Law, Foster and Jacobs, on missions, and they had just returned, and found their wives blushing under the prospective honors of spiritual wifeism; and another woman, Mrs. Buel [sic], had left her husband, a Gentile, to grace the Prophet's retinue, on horseback, when he reviewed the Nauvoo Legion. I heard the latter woman say afterwards in Utah, that she did not know whether Mr. Buel [sic] or the Prophet was the father of her son. These men [Law, Foster and Jacobs] established a press in Nauvoo, to expose his alleged vicious teachings and practices, which a revelation from Joseph destroyed.

Errors of fact

As might be expected, then, there are many claims in this passage that are in error. We know that the following are false:

• Ettie Smith claims that William Law, Robert D. Foster, and Henry Jacobs were on missions and that Joseph had proposed plural marriage to them. Law and Foster, in fact, never served missions. Henry Jacobs did serve a mission, but he was not gone on a mission when Joseph discussed plural marriage.
• Foster and Law did participate in publishing the Nauvoo Expositor, but Henry Jacobs did not. He was and remained a faithful member of the Church.
• The destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor was undertaken by the Nauvoo city council. Some members of that council were not members of the Church--it seems implausible to think that they would bow to a "revelation" to Joseph requiring its destruction. The decision was made, instead, after 8 hours of discussion and after consulting legal references.

Thus, in the single paragraph we have several basic errors of fact. Why should we believe the gossip of what Mrs. Buell is claimed to have said?

Such an admission would be out of character for a believing Utah woman of the 19th century

Furthermore, such an admission would be out of character for a believing Utah woman of the 19th century. As Todd Compton notes:

Talk of sexuality was avoided by the Victorian, puritanical Mormons; in diaries, the word 'pregnant' or 'expecting' is never or rarely used. Women are merely 'sick' until they have a child. Polyandry was rarely discussed openly by Mormon women.

It is difficult for Joseph to have even had contact with her at the proper time to conceive a child

Fawn Brodie painted a fanciful scenario in which Joseph would have been able to potentially father a Buell child. However, she misread the historical information, and it is difficult, as Todd Compton has demonstrated, for Joseph to have even had contact with her at the proper time to conceive a child. This would suggest that there were no grounds for Mrs. Buell—or a modern reader—to conclude that Joseph might have been the father.

Did Joseph Smith father children by polyandrous plural wife Prescindia Buell?

All those who have been definitively DNA tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded as children of Joseph Smith

Nauvoo Polygamy author George D. Smith tells his readers that "until decisive DNA testing of possible [Joseph] Smith descendants—daughters as well as sons—from plural wives can be accomplished, ascertaining whether Smith fathered children with any of his plural wives remains hypothetical" (pp. 228–29, cf. p. 473). This is true, but G. D. Smith fails to tell us that all those who have been definitively tested so far—Oliver Buell, Mosiah Hancock, Zebulon Jacobs, Moroni Pratt, and Orrison Smith—have been excluded. Would he have neglected, I wonder, to mention a positive DNA test?

The consequences of George D. Smith's less-than-rigorous approach to sources becomes clear in the case of Oliver Buell, son of Presendia. Huntington Buell, one of Joseph’s polyandrous plural wives. Fawn Brodie was the first to suggest that Oliver Buell was Joseph’s son, and she was so convinced (based on photographic evidence)Fawn Brodie to Dale Morgan, Letter, 24 March 1945, Dale Morgan papers, Marriott Library, University of Utah; cited by Todd Compton, "Fawn Brodie on Joseph Smith's Plural Wives and Polygamy: A Critical View," in Reconsidering No Man Knows My History: Fawn M. Brodie and Joseph Smith in Retrospect, ed. Newell G. Bringhurst (Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 1996), 166.</ref> In a footnote, G. D. Smith notes that Todd Compton "considers it improbable that Joseph and Presendia would have found time together during the brief window of opportunity after his release from prison in Missouri" (p. 80 n. 63).

The geography

This slight nod toward an opposite point of view is inadequate, however. G. D. Smith does not mention and hence does not confront the strongest evidence. Compton’s argument against Joseph’s paternity does not rest just on a "narrow window" of opportunity but on the fact that Brodie seriously misread the geography required by that window. It is not merely a question of dates. Brodie would have Joseph travel west from his escape near Gallatin, Davies County, Missouri, to Far West in order to meet Lucinda, and then on to Illinois toward the east. This route would require Joseph and his companions to backtrack while fleeing from custody in the face of an active state extermination order. Travel to Far West would also require them to travel near the virulently anti-Mormon area of Haun’s Mill, along Shoal Creek. Yet by April 22 Joseph was in Illinois, having been slowed by traveling "off from the main road as much as possible" "both by night and by day." This seems an implausible time for Joseph to be conceiving a child. Furthermore, it is evident that Far West was evacuated by other church leaders, "the committee on removal," and not under the Prophet’s direction. Joseph did not regain the Saints until reaching Quincy, Illinois, contrary to Brodie’s misreading. Timing is the least of the problems with G. D. Smith’s theory.

Despite Brodie’s enthusiasm, few other authors have included Oliver on their list of possible children. With so many authors ranged against him, G. D. Smith ought not to act as if Compton’s analysis is merely about dates.

The DNA

G. D. Smith also soft-pedals the most vital evidence—the DNA. He makes no mention in the main text that Oliver’s paternity has been definitively ruled out by DNA testing. This admission is confined to a footnote, and its impact is minimized by its placement. After noting Compton’s disagreement with the main text’s suggestion that Oliver might be Joseph’s son, G. D. Smith writes, "There is no DNA connection," and cites a Deseret News article. He immediately follows this obtuse phrasing with a return to Compton, who finds it "‘unlikely, though not impossible, that Joseph Smith was the actual father of another Buell child,’ John Hiram, Presendia’s seventh child during her marriage to Buell and born in November 1843" (p. 80 n. 63). Thus the most salient fact—that Joseph is certainly not Oliver's father—is sandwiched between a vicarious discussion with Compton about whether Oliver or John could be Joseph’s sons. Since G. D. Smith knows there is definitive evidence against Joseph’s paternity in Oliver’s case, why mention the debate at all only to hide the answer in the midst of a long endnote? That Brodie is so resoundingly rebutted on textual, historical, and genetic grounds provides a cautionary lesson in presuming that her certainty counts for much.

Maybe another Buell child?

Two pages later, G. D. Smith again tells us of a Buell child being sealed to a proxy for Joseph with "wording [that] hints that it might have been Smith’s child." "It is not clear," he tells us, "which of her children it might have been" (p. 82). In fact, what is clear is that he has not assimilated the implications of the DNA data. John Hiram, the seventh child about whom Compton is skeptical, is the only other option. Yet the only evidence for this child belonging to Joseph is Ettie V. Smith’s account in the anti-Mormon Fifteen Years among the Mormons (1859), which claimed that Presendia said she did not know whether Joseph or her first husband was John Hiram’s father. As Compton notes, such an admission is implausible, given the mores of the time.

Besides being implausible, Ettie’s account gets virtually every other detail wrong—insisting that William Law, Robert Foster, and Henry Jacobs had all been sent on missions only to return to find Joseph preaching plural marriage. Ettie then has them establish the Expositor. While Law and Foster were involved with the Expositor, they were not sent on missions. Jacobs had served missions but was a faithful Saint unconnected to the Expositor. He was also, contrary to Ettie’s claims, present when Joseph was sealed polyandrously to his (Jacobs’s) wife.

Even the anti-Mormon Fanny Stenhouse considered Ettie Smith to be a writer who "so mixed up fiction with what was true, that it was difficult to determine where one ended and the other began," and a good example of how "the autobiographies of supposed Mormon women were [as] unreliable" as other Gentile accounts, given her tendency to "mingl[e] facts and fiction" "in a startling and sensational manner."

Brodie herself makes no mention of John Hiram as a potential child, going so far as to carelessly misread Ettie Smith’s remarks as referring to Oliver, not John Hiram. No other historian has argued that Buell was not the father. There is no good evidence whatever that any of Presendia’s children were Joseph’s. It is not clear why G. D. Smith clings to the idea.

What is the current state of the evidence for proving or disproving that Joseph Smith had children by his plural wives?

As always, we are left where we began—with more suspicions and possibilities than certitudes

Few authors agree on which children should even be considered as Joseph's potential children. Candidates which some find overwhelmingly likely are dismissed—or even left unmentioned—by others. Recent scholars have included between one to four potential children as options. Of these, Josephine Lyon was the most persuasive, until her relationship to Joseph Smith was ultimately disproven through DNA testing. Orson W. Hyde died in infancy, and so can never be definitively excluded as a possible child, though the dates of conception argue against Joseph's paternity. Olive Gray Frost is mentioned in two sources as having a child by Joseph. Both she and the child died in Nauvoo, so no genetic evidence will ever be forthcoming.

Table 2

Table 11‑2 Possible Children of Joseph Smith, Jr., by Plural Marriage

This table is in the same order as Table 1.

Key:

• NM = Brodie, No Man Knows My History, 2nd edition (1971);
• Bachman, "Mormon Practice of Polygamy" (1975);
• VW=Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy, 2nd edition (1989);
• Fo = Foster, Religion and Sexuality (1984);
• Co = Compton, In Sacred Loneliness (1997);
• Be = Bergera, "Identifying the Earliest Mormon Polygamists," (2005);
• Ha = Hales, Joseph Smith’s Polygamy (2013).

Notation:

• Y – indicates the author considers the child a possible child of Joseph Smith, Jr.
• N - indicates that author argues against this child being Joseph's child, or lists someone else as the father.
• Ø - indicates that author does not mention the possibility (pro or con) of this being Joseph's child.

Endnote links for above table

Brodie; Bachman;; and Compton.

Conclusions

As always, we are left where we began—with more suspicions and possibilities than certitudes. One's attitude toward Joseph and the Saints will influence, more than anything else, how these conflicting data are interpreted.

The uncertainty surrounding Joseph's offspring is even more astonishing when we appreciate how much such a child would have been valued. The Utah Church of the 19th century was anxious to prove that Joseph had practiced full plural marriage, and that their plural families merely continued what he started. Any child of Joseph's would have been treasured, and the family honoured. There was a firm expectation that even Joseph's sons by Emma would have an exalted place in the LDS hierarchy if they were to repent and return to the Church. As Alma Allred noted, "Susa Young Gates indicated that [Brigham Young] wasn’t aware of such a child when she wrote that her father and the other apostles were especially grieved that Joseph did not have any issue in the Church."

In 1884, George Q. Cannon bemoaned this lack of Joseph's posterity:

There may be faithful men who will have unfaithful sons, who may not be as faithful as they might be; but faithful posterity will come, just as I believe it will be the case with the Prophet Joseph's seed. To-day he has not a soul descended from him personally, in this Church. There is not a man bearing the Holy Priesthood, to stand before our God in the Church that Joseph was the means in the hands of God, of founding—not a man to-day of his own blood,—that is, by descent,—to stand before the Lord, and represent him among these Latter-day Saints.

Brigham and Cannon, a member of the First Presidency, would have known of Joseph's offspring if any of the LDS leadership did. Yet, despite the religious and public relations value which such a child would have provided, they knew of none. It is possible that Joseph had children by his plural wives, but by no means certain. The data are surprisingly ephemeral.

Was the only purpose of polygamy to "multiply and replenish the earth" and "bear the souls of men"?

Doctrine and Covenants states that polygamy is for the purpose of multiplying and replenishing the earth

Doctrine and Covenants 132꞉63 states,

But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.

The institution of the practice of polygamy was part of the "restoration of all things"

Polygamy was not permitted only for the purpose of procreation. Joseph established the practice of plural marriage as part of the "restoration of all things," (D&C 132: 40, 45) and introduced it to a number of others within the Church. This alone may have been the purpose of Joseph's initiation of the practice. The establishment of the practice ultimately did have the effect of "raising up seed"...just not through Joseph Smith.

As Brian Hales writes:

Joseph Smith dictated what is now Doctrine and Covenant section 132 on July 12, 1843. This revelation, along with his other statements, provide several reasons why he believed plural marriage could be introduced among the Latter-day Saints.

The earliest justification mentioned by the Prophet was as a part of the "restitution of all things" prophesied in Acts 3:19–21. Old Testament prophets practiced polygamy, so it could be a part of the restoration of "all things" (see D&C 132:40, 45).

Several members who knew Joseph Smith left accounts of him referring to a connection between the two during the Kirtland period.

Benjamin F. Johnson recalled in 1903: "In 1835 at Kirtland I learned from my Sisters Husband, Lyman R. Shirman, who was close to the Prophet, and Received it from him. That the ancient order of plural marriage was again to be practiced by the Church."

A few years later in 1841, Joseph Smith attempted to broach the topic publicly. Helen Mar Kimball remembered: "He [Joseph] astonished his hearers by preaching on the restoration of all things, and said that as it was anciently with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, so it would be again, etc." Joseph Smith was a prophet-restorer, which helps to explain why the command to practice plural marriage has been labeled a "restoration," even though it is not a salvific ordinance.

The institution of the practice of polygamy made available the blessings of eternal marriage to everyone

Brian Hales addresses one aspect of D&C 132 that may be overlooked in casual readings:

The fourth reason Joseph Smith gave for the practice of plural marriage dwarfs the other three explanations in significance because it deals with eternity. The message of D&C 132:16–17 states that men and women who are not sealed in eternal marriages during this life (or vicariously later) "remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity."

In other words, "exaltation," the highest salvation, requires eternal marriage. No unmarried person can be exalted according to Joseph Smith’s teachings. Doctrine and Covenants section 132 seems to anticipate more worthy women than men as it approves a plurality of wives and disallows a plurality of husbands. Verse 63 states that a plurality of wives is "for their [the wives] exaltation in the eternal worlds." Section 132 supports that eternity was the primary focus of the Joseph’s marriage theology rather than plurality or sexuality. Eternal, rather than plural, marriage was his zenith doctrine. It appears that the crucial objective of polygamy on earth was to allow all worthy women to be eternally sealed to a husband and thus obtain all the ordinances needed for exaltation. According to these teachings, a plurality of wives in some form may be practiced in eternity, but not by all worthy men and women. We know that polygamy on earth is unequal and difficult, but we know nothing about how eternal marriage or eternal plural marriage might feel in eternity. Brigham Young acknowledged that eternal marriage (not plural marriage) is "the thread which runs from the beginning to the end" in God’s plan for His children:

The whole subject of the marriage [not plural marriage] relation is not in my reach, nor in any other man’s reach on this earth. It is without beginning of days or end of years; it is a hard matter to reach. We can tell some things with regard to it; it lays the foundation for worlds, for angels, and for the Gods; for intelligent beings to be crowned with glory, immortality, and eternal lives. In fact, it is the thread which runs from the beginning to the end of the holy Gospel of salvation—of the Gospel of the Son of God; it is from eternity to eternity.

Can this be included in the interpretation of D&C 132: 63?

Another author commenting on this verse made a compelling case for this theology being put into D&C 132: 63:

Here is the text in its entirety, from verse 62: "for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men." [Emphasis added.] You want to get legalistic? Let’s get legalistic. Just for fun, let’s parse the living snot out of this.This clause begins with multiplying and replenishing as a primary justification. Then we get the word "and" thrown in there. You’re reading this as if it says "they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, in order to fulfil the promise…" But that’s not what it says.

"And" suggests we’re about to get a second reason, not a clarification of the first. In fact, a tight, strict-constructionist reading of this verse reveals three different and distinct reasons for plural marriage, not "only" the replenishment of the earth, [. . .]So let’s review the three reasons:

1. Multiply and replenish the earth.
[. . .] D&C 132 is unequivocal on this point, just as it is unequivocal on the two points that follow.

2. Fulfil [sic] "the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world."

What promise? This seems to have reference to the "restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began." (Acts 3:21) Joseph cited the need to restore ancient practices to prepare for the Second Coming as a justification for polygamy, and this verse provides a credible scriptural context for him to do so. So just relying on this phrase – plural marriage is acceptable because it fulfills God’s promises – would be justification enough for the practice, at least according to D&C 132.
3. For "their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men."

Oh, this one’s my favorite. Notice the emphasis I added on the "that." The word appears there to create a conditional clause. You claim the bearing of souls is the same thing as multiplying and replenishing the earth, but the actual text insists that the bearing of the souls of men will only be made possible by "exaltation in the eternal worlds." This is a promise of eternal increase, of bearing souls after the earth is no longer around to be replenished. Big, big difference.

And right here, with Reason #3, we have a clear rationale and justification for Joseph being sealed to women with whom he made no attempts to multiply and replenish the earth – i.e. no sex.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

Common Inaccurate Explanations for Joseph Smith’s Polygamy	Both modern and 19th century members of the Church have proposed a variety of explanations for the practice of plural marriage. Not all of these suggestions can be supported by the available data.
Doctrinal summary	Joseph identified four reasons for the restoration of plural marriage.
Joseph Smith’s Personal Polygamy	Many are quick to declare that Joseph's polygamy sprang from religious extremism and/or sexual desire. This article explores the difficulties that Joseph had with plural marriage, and evidence for what truly motivated his acts.
The Faith of the Nauvoo Polygamists	Why did early members of the Church practice polygamy? Were they all dupes? Easily manipulated? Religious fanatics who believed Joseph could do no wrong? This article explores the initial reactions and eventual decisions made by the first generation of polygamists in Nauvoo.

Why would Joseph Smith be sealed to other men's wives?

Summary: Why would Joseph Smith be sealed to other men's wives? Some of these men were even active members of the Church. Were these marriages for time or only for eternity? Were these marriages consumated? Why did these women continue to live with the husbands after being sealed to Joseph Smith?

Question: Were there sexual relations in Joseph's marriages to women with living husbands?

Summary: There is no good evidence for sexual relations in polyandrous sealings.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

Did Joseph Smith’s Plural Marriages Include Sexual Relations?	Some wonder if sexual relations were included in Joseph Smith’s plural marriages. The answer is yes or no, depending upon the type of plural marriage. Those marriages, often called “sealings,” were of two types. Some were for this life and the next (called “time-and-eternity”) and could include sexuality on earth. Others were limited to the next life (called “eternity-only”) and did not allow intimacy in mortality. Overall, evidence indicates that less than half of Joseph Smith’s polygamous unions were consummated and sexual relations in the others occurred infrequently.
Sexual Relations are Documented In Less than Half of Joseph Smith’s Plural Marriages	It appears the Prophet experienced sexual relations with less than half of the women sealed to him. There is no credible evidence that Joseph had sex with three subgroups of his plural wives: (1) fourteen-year-old wives, (2) non-wives (or women to whom he was not married), and (3) legally married women who were experiencing conjugal relations with their civil husbands.
Children from Joseph Smith’s Plural Marriages	No children are known to have been born to Joseph and his plural wives.

Notes

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Articles about Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

What do we know about Joseph Smith's "polyandrous" sealings or plural marriages?

Nothing in plural marriage mystifies—or troubles—members of the Church more than Joseph's polyandrous sealings

Nothing in plural marriage mystifies—or troubles—members of the Church more than Joseph's polyandrous sealings. Marriage to multiple wives may seem strange, but at least it intrudes on our historical awareness, while many remain unaware of polyandry's existence in LDS history. This variant of plural marriage does not seem to have been a feature of Utah polygamy under Brigham Young and his successors. To complicate the issue further, we understand little about how Joseph and his contemporaries saw these relationships. Mary Elizabeth Rollins seemed to recognize that later students of the period would not have the necessary information to understand her choices as a polyandrous wife: "[I] could explain some things in regard to my living with [my first husband] after becoming the Wife of Another [i.e., Joseph], which would throw light, on what now seems mysterious—and you would be perfectly satisfied with me. I write this; because I have heard that it had been commented on to my injury."

Lacking such perfect satisfaction, we can still offer some tentative observations and conclusions.

The doctrine of sealing and adoption

Plural marriage was one means by which Joseph implemented the broader doctrine of sealing. Ultimately, his intent seems to have been to reunite the human family into a bonded whole. "Joseph did not marry women to form a warm, human companionship," observed Richard Bushman, "but to create a network of related wives, children, and kinsmen that would endure into the eternities." Alma Allred agrees with Todd Compton that "[m]arriage, sealing and adoption, in fact, were nearly interchangeable concepts," for Joseph's followers, but criticizes Compton because this principle is "much too important to be relegated to, or lost in a footnote" when discussing Joseph's plural marriages.

Sealing creates new, eternal families, and "[a]s each new family came into being, it became another link in the chain of families stretching back to Adam, who was linked to God. Thus the 'family of God' became more than metaphor." It is but a short step from sealing existing families to extending that privilege outward. Since many, if not most, of the saints would have family outside the church, there was an understandable anxiety that they be included in the new, eternal family being forged by Joseph.

Later in Church history, this was accomplished by adoption, where faithful members would serve as surrogate parents in the divine order. This practice was not without its problems, as some surrogates began to look on their adoption of others as a route to glory and power, both spiritual and temporal, rather than as a service for the family of heaven. Adoption by living non-relatives was eventually replaced by the present practice of sealing members to deceased ancestors, with the expectation that definitive resolution of such matters can await the millennial years.

This expanded understanding, however, was decades in the future. In Joseph's day, the necessity of sealing was clear, and most members did not anticipate having faithful family to whom they could be sealed. The Mormons' anticipation of an imminent end to the world may have heightened the sense of urgency.

The role of sealing in marriages was clear—as we will see, Joseph may have extended the role of marriage to binding not just his partners, but their spouses and family as well, into the divine family.

Evaluating each polyandrous marriage

Because we know little or nothing about some of Joseph's marriages, some authors succumb to the temptation to treat evidence in one marriage as evidence for them all. Each marriage, however, involved unique individuals and situations; we cannot turn them into carbon copies. For ease of discussion, however, we will divide the polyandrous marriages into three groups:

1. Spouse is a non-member
2. Spouse is a non-faithful LDS
3. Spouse is faithful LDS
4. Separated/divorced from their spouse at the time of their sealing to Joseph (i.e., pseudopolyandry)

Group 1: Women with non-member spouses

Ruth Vose Sayers

Three of Joseph's plural marriages involved women who were married to non-member spouses. Of one, Ruth Vose Sayers, we know very little. She married Edward Sayers in 1841, and they had no children. Her husband remained friendly to Joseph Smith, as far as we know, to the end of Joseph's life. Brian Hales notes that Church Historian Andrew Jensen's documents "regarding Ruth Vose Sayers demonstrate that her marriage was for 'eternity only,' without conjugal relations on earth," pointing out that Jenson wrote of Sayer's non-believing husband:

[he] not attaching much important to \the/ theory of a future life insisted that his wife \Ruth/ should be sealed to the Prophet for eternity, as he himself should only claim her in this life. She \was/ accordingly the sealed to the Prophet in Emma Smith's presence and thus were became numbered among the Prophets plural wives. She however \though she/ \continued to live with Mr. Sayers/ remained with her husband\ until his death.

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner

Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner was among the earliest converts to the Church. She had married Adam Lightner on 11 August 1835. Following the Haun's Mill massacre, Mary could have escaped General Clark's siege of Far West, since Governor Boggs had ordered the clandestine evacuation of his friend Adam Lightner and family prior to an anticipated assault on Far West. Mary, her husband, and sister-in-law refused the offer to leave, even though Clark insisted that all remaining men, women, and children "were to be destroyed."

Later in life, Mary reported that at age twelve, Joseph Smith "told me [in 1831] about his great vision concerning me. He said I was the first woman God commanded him to take as a plural wife." She also described how

God had Commanded him in July 1834 to take me for a Wife, but he had not dared to make it known to me, for when he received the Revelation; I was in Missouri and when he did see me, I was married. But he was again commanded, to fulfil the first revelation; or Suffer condemnation…

Mary described how "[t]he Prophet Joseph tried hard to get Mr. Lightner to go into the water, but he said he did not feel worthy, but would, some other time. Joseph said to me that he never would be baptized, unless it was a few moments before he died." Despite not being a member, Lightner was a loyal friend to the Saints and to Joseph, and died in Utah.

Of her sealing to Joseph, Mary wrote: "I could tell you why I stayed with Mr. Lightner. Things the leaders of the Church does not know anything about. I did just as Joseph told me to do, as he knew what troubles I would have to contend with."

Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland

There is considerable debate as to whether Sarah Kingsley was sealed to Joseph Smith. Danel Bachman's pioneering study on plural marriage argued that there was "little supporting evidence for [her]…inclusion" on a list of Joseph's wives. Todd Compton argues for Sarah's inclusion, since she is included on Andrew Jenson's list of plural wives, had a proxy marriage to Joseph Smith in the temple following the martyrdom, and because Eliza R. Snow is known to have been sealed to Joseph at Sarah's home. Compton holds—and I find his reasoning persuasive—that Joseph's decision to marry Eliza in front of Sarah makes little sense if Sarah had not already been introduced to plural marriage. (Though it must be admitted that Sarah could have been aware of plural marriage, but not practicing it.) Compton's argument is strengthened by the fact that Andrew Jenson also had access to Eliza R. Snow as a witness, so she could have confirmed Sarah's sealing.

Sarah married John Cleveland, her second husband, on 10 June 1826, and she joined the Church in 1835. Her husband never joined the Church, but was a close friend of Joseph's. While Joseph was in Liberty Jail, Emma and her children were welcomed into the Cleveland's Quincy, Illinois home. Following his release in May 1839, Joseph rejoined his family and they remained in Sarah and John's home for three weeks.

While Joseph and most of the Church migrated to the Nauvoo region, the Clevelands remained in Illinois for a time. Though not a member, John continued to provide shelter and help to members of the Church who were victims of persecution. This aid given to the beleaguered Saints led to persecution against John and Sarah, and they eventually moved to Nauvoo.

Sarah served as a counselor to Emma Smith in the Nauvoo Relief Society, and at age 54 was probably sealed to Joseph Smith prior to Eliza R. Snow's marriage on 29 June 1842. It is not known if her husband knew of the sealing, but he remained friendly to Joseph and the Saints.

When Brigham Young and the Saints made plans to move west, Sarah remained behind with her husband. Various explanations for this decision exist, but in one account says that:

Brigham Young and council…counciled her to stay with her Husband as he was a good man, having shown himself kind ever helping those in need, although for some reason his mind was darkened as to the Gospel. She obey[ed] the council and stayed with her Husband, and was faithfull and true to her religion and died a faithfull member of the Church…

Observations about the first group

Though little is known of one woman, and it is debated whether another ought to be counted as a wife, these histories share some significant elements. All were faithful women who had sacrificed a great deal for the Church. All had a long association with Joseph Smith—he knew them and their families well. All were married to men who were good friends of Joseph's, and remained so until his death. We know little about Edward Sayers, but the other two husbands had made enormous sacrifices for the Saints. Both were willing to risk persecution and death for a religion of which they were not a part.

Given the importance which Joseph placed upon the sealing ordinances, it is not surprising that he wished to assure the salvation of such faithful women. We have only glimpses of Joseph's theology of sealing; it may even be that he hoped that by marrying/sealing these wives, their non-member husbands might also benefit from the blessings of sealing. Lightner and Cleveland were certainly two non-members whom Joseph and the Saints would have hoped to see saved with them.

Group 2: Women with non-faithful LDS spouses

Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell

Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell and her husband Norman joined the Church in 1836. By 1839, Norman had left the Church, and Prescindia noted that "the Lord gave me strength to Stand alone & keep the faith amid heavy persecution."

"[I]n 1841 I entered into the New Everlasting Covenant," said Prescindia, "[I] was sealed to Joseph Smith the Prophet and Seer, and to the best of my ability I have honored plural marriage, never speaking one word against the principle… Never in my life, in this kingdom, which is 44 years, have I doubted the truth of this great work." Her motivation for the sealing to Joseph is alluded to by Emeline B. Wells:

She knew Joseph to be a man of God, and she had received many manifestations in proof of this, and consequently when he explained to her clearly the knowledge which he had obtained from the Lord, she accepted the sealing ordinance with Joseph as a sacred and holy confirmation.

Two of Prescinda's children have been suggested as potential children by Joseph, though DNA evidence has ruled one child out, and the claim for the other is extremely shaky (see here).

Observations about the second group

According to Emeline, this sealing served as a "holy confirmation," a completion or capstone on a life of faithfulness. As with the wives having non-member spouses, Prescindia's acceptance of sealing seems motivated by a desire to bind her into the family of faithful Saints, destined for exaltation even if her first husband did not continue faithful.

Group 3: Women with faithful LDS spouses

Six (or five, if one doubtful wife is excluded) of Joseph's polyandrous marriages were to women married to faithful LDS men.

Esther Dutcher

Daniel H. Wells wrote to Joseph F. Smith of a sealing between Joseph and Esther Dutcher. Wells' source of information was Dutcher's husband, Albert Smith (no relation to Joseph):

It seems that she was sealed to Joseph the Prophet in the days of Nauvoo, though she still remained his wife, and afterwards nearly broke his heart by telling him of it, and expressing her intention of adhering to that relationship. He however got to feeling better over it, and acting for Joseph, had her sealed to him [in the temple--all of Joseph's marriages were understood to require resealing in the temple once it was completed], and to himself for time.

Patty Bartlett Sessions

Sylvia Session's mother Patty joined the Church in 1833, and was sealed to Joseph Smith on 9 March 1842. The reaction of her husband David is unknown, but he remained a faithful member and diligent missionary. He later married a plural wife, which caused difficulties in their marriage.

Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde

Nancy married future apostle Orson Hyde on 4 September 1834. He was involved briefly with apostasy at Far West in the fall of 1838, but had returned to the Church by March 1839 following a dramatic vision in which he saw the consequence of continued rebellion.

There are two sealing dates for Marinda— one in April 1842, while Orson was on a mission and the other May 1843, when Orson had returned. Only antagonistic accounts of this sealing exist. Of the four reports, two claim that Orson was aware of the sealing, and two claim that he was not.

Author	Date	Claim	Comments
Sidney Rigdon	1845	Orson unaware of marriage Orson refused to live with wife when he found out	Contrary to claim, Orson continued to live with Miranda and father children by her.
William Hall	1852	Joseph demanded Miranda and all Orson's money to let him back in the Church "Many jokes were cracked at his [Hyde's] expense."	Very unlikely—no record of others mocking Hyde; Hall is unreliable on other marriages as well. Orson's return to the quorum was in June 1839, putting Hall's account two years too early for marriage.
Ann Eliza Young	1876	Orson did not know of marriage Angry when he learned of it Swore would not live with his wife; did so anyway.	Too young to have any first-hand knowledge of Nauvoo, her book's intent was clearly to titillate with stories of polygamous intrigue. Claims that Brigham told Orson that she was only to be his wife for time, and Joseph's for eternity—but this is frankly false, since sealed to Orson in early 1846. She also confuses the temporality, since she describes Hyde "in a furious passion," because "he thought it no harm for him to win the affection of another man's wife… but he did not propose having his rights interfered with even by the holy Prophet whose teachings he so implicitly followed" (326). Yet, Orson did not begin practicing plural marriage until after he knew of Miranda's sealing to Joseph.
John D. Lee	1877	"Report said that Hyde's wife, with his consent, was sealed to Joseph for an eternal state, but I do not assert the fact."	Lee's work was published posthumously and may have been altered by anti-Mormon editor.

Unique to the Hyde's marriage is the fact that Marinda was sealed to Orson following Joseph's death. All of the Prophet's other polyandrous wives were posthumously sealed to Joseph by proxy.

The Hydes were to divorce in 1870: "The precise reasons for the divorce are not known, but it appears that Orson was giving most of his attention to his younger wives at this time."

Two of Marinda's children have been suggested as potential children by Joseph, but this is very unlikely (see here).

Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes

Elvira was married to Joseph at age twenty-nine. Her husband, Jonathan Holmes, was a pall-bearer at Joseph Smith's funeral. As Todd Compton remarks

Though it is impossible to know for certain, the fact that Holmes was so close to Joseph Smith suggests that he knew of Smith’s marriage to his wife and permitted it…He later stood as proxy for Smith as Elvira married the prophet for eternity in the Nauvoo temple…This ‘first husband’ never wavered in his loyalty to the Mormon leader….

Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee

The inclusion of "Mrs. Durfee," as she was known, on the list of Joseph's wives is strongly contested among historians. Durfee is not found on Andrew Jenson's list of Joseph's plural wives. Todd Compton argues that Durfee's post-martyrdom proxy sealing to Joseph is evidence of a living marriage, as is the fact that she taught plural marriage to other prospective wives. Compton also holds that two hostile sources (John C. Bennett and Sarah Pratt) confirm Durfee as a plural wife.

Danel Bachman's 1975 thesis does not include Durfee, and her inclusion is contested by Anderson and Faulring, who question Compton's interpretation of the Sarah Pratt evidence:

…assuming Sarah Pratt is accurately quoted, we are still in doubt about where she obtained her information. In Sacred Loneliness misleads the reader by claiming that "Sarah Pratt mentions that she heard a Mrs. Durfee in Salt Lake City profess to have been one of Smith's wives" (p. 260). But this changes the actual report of Sarah's comments on Mrs. Durfee: "I don't think she was ever sealed to him, though it may have been the case after Joseph's death. . . At all events, she boasted here in Salt Lake of having been one of Joseph's wives" (p. 701).

I am inclined to agree that Sarah's statement argues against a marriage. I also find it strange that Andrew Jenson did not list her if she was a plural spouse. If, as in the case of Sarah Kingsley (see above) I side with Compton in agreeing that Eliza R. Snow could have confirmed Sarah's marriage for Jenson's list, then it strikes me as inconsistent to then assume that Eliza would not have likewise confirmed Mrs. Durfee's marriage for Jenson's list. Compton himself notes that Eliza and Durfee were close friends, and Jenson certainly had access to Eliza as a witness. There seems to me to be little doubt that Mrs. Durfee was associated with plural marriage, but I think her status as a wife during Joseph's lifetime dubious.

The only thing about which we can be certain is that Mrs. Durfee was sealed to Joseph by proxy after the martyrdom. Her LDS husband stood as proxy to Joseph. Their relationship seems to have been strained by this time—they were soon to divorce and each remarried.

Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs

In 1839, at age 18, Zina arrived with her parents in Nauvoo after being driven out of Missouri. Faithful LDS missionary Henry Jacobs courted her during 1840–41. At the same time, Joseph Smith had taught Zina the doctrine of plural marriage, and thrice asked her to marry him. She declined each time, and she and Henry were wed 7 March 1841.

Zina and Henry were married by John C. Bennett, then mayor of Nauvoo. They had invited Joseph to perform the ceremony, but Bennett stepped in when Joseph did not arrive:

…Zina asked the Prophet to perform the marriage. They went to the Clerk’s office and the Prophet did not arrive, so they were married by John C. Bennett. When they saw Joseph they asked him why he didn’t come, and he told them the Lord had made it known to him that she was to be his Celestial wife. Family tradition holds, then, that Zina and Henry were aware of Joseph's plural marriage teachings and his proposal to Zina. While this perspective is late and after-the-fact, it is consistent with the Jacobs' behaviour thereafter. Zina's family also wrote that Henry believed that "whatever the Prophet did was right, without making the wisdom of God's authorities bend to the reasoning of any man."

On 27 October 1841, Zina was sealed to Joseph Smith by her brother, Dimick Huntington. She was six months pregnant by Henry, and continued to live with him.

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young's "mistreatment" of Henry and their "theft" of his family have received a great deal of publicity, thanks to late 19th century anti-Mormon sources, and Fawn Brodie increased their cachet for a 20th century audience. These charges are examined in detail (here). For present purposes, we will focus on Zina. She had refused Joseph's suit three times, and chosen to marry Henry. Why did she decide to be sealed to Joseph?

When interrogated by a member of the RLDS Church, Zina refused to be drawn into specifics. She made her motivations clear, and explained that God had prepared her mind for Joseph's teachings even before she had heard them:

Q. "Can you give us the date of that marriage with Joseph Smith?"

A. "No, sir, I could not."

Q. "Not even the year?"

A. "No, I do not remember. It was something too sacred to be talked about; it was more to me than life or death. I never breathed it for years. I will tell you the facts. I had dreams—I am no dreamer but I had dreams that I could not account for. I know this is the work of the Lord; it was revealed to me, even when young. Things were presented to my mind that I could not account for. When Joseph Smith revealed this order [Celestial marriage] I knew what it meant; the Lord was preparing my mind to receive it."

Zina herself clearly explains the basis for her choice:

…when I heard that God had revealed the law of Celestial marriage that we would have the privilege of associating in family relationships in the worlds to come, I searched the scriptures and by humble prayer to my Heavenly Father I obtained a testimony for myself that God had required that order to be established in his Church. Faced with questions from her RLDS interviewer that she felt exceeded propriety, Zina became evasive. She finally terminated the interview by saying, "Mr. Wight, you are speaking on the most sacred experiences of my life…."

Henry was to stand as proxy for Zina's post-martyrdom sealing to Joseph, and her sealing for time to Brigham Young. He and Zina separated soon thereafter, and Henry was soon gone on one of his many missions for the Church. (See here for a more in-depth analysis of attacks on Brigham and Joseph regarding Zina and Henry.)

Observations about the third group

In Henry Jacob's and Albert Smith's cases, we have the clearest evidence of husbands of polyandrous wives who knew about Joseph's sealing to his spouse. Henry remained a devout member of the Church, continued to serve as a missionary, and stood proxy for Zina's sealing to Joseph. Albert Smith was initially troubled, but later felt better about the arrangement, and stood proxy for Joseph in ratifying the sealing after Joseph's death.

The faithful husbands of Joseph's other polyandrous wives likewise give no sign that they were troubled by the marriages—if they were aware of them. It is notable, however, that Joseph seemed to have a particularly close bond with these husbands, and there is no evidence that such bonds were threatened by the polyandry.

Group 4: Women likely separated/divorced from their first husbands (i.e., pseudopolyandry)

Two cases may represent women who did not consider themselves still married to their first husband.

Sylvia Sessions Lyon

Sylvia Sessions married Windsor Lyon on 21 April 1838. Joseph Smith performed the ceremony. She was sealed to Joseph Smith on 8 February 1842. Her husband Windsor's reaction is not recorded, but he was a faithful, active member of the Church at the time.

Windsor was excommunicated on 7 November 1842 because he sued stake president William Marks for repayment of a loan (Church members frowned on using secular courts to settle disputes between themselves). Despite his excommunication, Windsor remained on close terms with Joseph; tradition holds that he was "a true friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith."

Sylvia gave birth to a daughter, Josephine, on 8 February 1844, and there was evidence for many years that Joseph was the father (see here). However, DNA analysis ultimately disproved this: Josephine was not a descendant of Joseph Smith, Jr.Regardless, Windsor Lyon remained a close friend and ally of Joseph's—he was called as a witness at the trial of Joseph and Hyrum's assassins.

Brian Hales has recently published work demonstrating that Todd Compton likely worked with incomplete data on Session's first marriage. In Hales' view, Sessions considered herself divorced from her husband, and Joseph is the only viable father for her child. If so, Sessions' marriage to Joseph was not polyandrous.

Windsor was rebaptized on 18 January 1846, and Sylvia was sealed to Joseph by proxy with her husband's permission. She was then sealed to Heber Kimball for time, though she continued to cohabitate with Windsor, who also took a plural wife.

Mary Heron Snider

Mary Heron Snider's husband John died active and faithful in the Church. Further, he served a mission in England and was the first Mormon to preach there, served on the committee building the Nauvoo House, was appointed a "bodyguard" for Joseph's body following the martyrdom at Carthage. There is a one-sentence claim of sexual relations between her and Joseph by a son-in-law, Joseph E. Johnson. Mary and her husband "seem to have endured significant periods of estrangement after 1833, with no pregnancies after Mary turned twenty nine. Also, the couple's marriage was never sealed, though the option was available....without addition[al] documentation, reliable conclusions are unattainable." It may be that Snider's marriage to Joseph parallels the case of Sylvia Sessions Lyon, who was likely separated from her first husband prior to her plural marriage to Joseph.

A hypothesis—why so many early polyandrous marriages?

Joseph's polyandry strikes us as a strange practice, but few have noted some of the strangest elements. Interestingly, after Joseph's resumption of plural marriage in April 1841, all of his marriages (with one exception) were polyandrous until 29 June 1842. The lone exception is the marriage to his dead brother's widow. Furthermore, of his eleven polyandrous marriages, all but two occurred before July 1843.

This early prominence, even predominance, of polyandry is counter-intuitive. Polyandrous marriages would seem to be the most risky for Joseph and his wives. With polyandry, Emma's reaction to the marriages would be the least of Joseph's worries. Unlike being sealed to single women, polyandrous sealings introduced an additional dangerous variable: the first husband! In teaching and practicing polyandry, Joseph ran the significant risk of a jealous husband learning of his arrangement with the wife, and exposing the explosive secret in hostile terms. Such a husband might also choose to threaten Joseph physically for wrongs to his wife's—and his own—honor.

The risk to Joseph is heightened when we appreciate that a single woman had no competing loyalties, while a polyandrous wife almost always had children and a husband to whom she was bound by love and loyalty. Finally, since a key justification for Mormon polygamy was the biblical model, polyandry would also have been the most difficult form to justify to potential initiates, since there is no biblical polyandry.

Yet when we examine Joseph's polyandrous marriages, none of these problems seem to surface. All of the men—member or non-member—were close friends of Joseph's, and remained so until his death. No wife seems to have second thoughts; none tearfully confessed all to her unsuspecting husband or Nauvoo society.

This common-sense analysis hinges, however, on the question of marital intimacy. If polyandrous sealings were not expected to involve sexual intimacy, then they were much less challenging for all involved—including Joseph and Emma. Emma would be far less troubled by a polyandrous marriage intended to seal Joseph to beloved friends than a marriage to single women living in her home. Joseph's natural—and, I suspect, profound—desire to keep the Lord's commandments and protect Emma's feelings would have been satisfied.

If the first husband was aware of the sealings, the faithful Saints would have been untroubled by a relationship which they saw as primarily binding their family to Joseph's, while non-member husbands would have seen it as a purely religious rite with a man for whom they retained great respect and affection.

Could faithful members save the unfaithful or unbaptized?

A skeptical reader might, at this point, suspect we are over-reaching for an explanation. There is evidence, however, that early Mormons firmly believed that a faithful spouse could help exalt a wayward or non-member spouse.

Twenty-one-year-old Isaiah Moses Coombs immigrated to Utah in 1855. To his grief, his childhood sweetheart refused to accompany him, despite their marriage the year before. Reflecting on the agonizing decision to go west without his non-member spouse, Coombs wrote:

…not least was the consideration that I was obeying the voice of God and that I was taking a course that would secure my own glory and exaltation and that would eventually either in this life or that which is to come enable me to bind my wife to me in bands that could not be broken. She was blind then but the day would come when she would see.

Coombs' wife was never to join the Church, and refused a later entreaty to return with him to Utah. Yet, he persisted in the conviction that his faithfulness to the sealing covenant would suffice to exalt his disbelieving, non-member wife in the hereafter, even if she did not accept the gospel in mortality.

This example is instructive, and is significant because the account was not written for public consumption. He had no polemic purpose, save to tell his life's story.

He was also not a "prominent" member of the Church—his reflections demonstrate how one rank-and-file member, living apart from the main body of saints because of poverty, understood matters in the early 1850s. Coombs' journal makes it wrenchingly clear that his decision to leave was extraordinarily difficult—if a relatively unknown young man, moving outside the hub of Church power in Nauvoo and Utah was thus convinced, it seems likely that other early members also saw their own engagement in sealing as sufficient to help save faithful, wayward, or non-member spouses.

Further evidence against sexual polyandry

Nauvoo witnesses did not try to justify sexual polyandry

Brian Hales notes that none of the members at Nauvoo attempted to justify sexual polyandry:

Belinda Marden Pratt, a plural wife of Parley P. Pratt, wrote in 1854: "'Why not a plurality of husbands as well as a plurality of wives?' To which I reply: 1st God has never commanded or sanctioned a plurality of husbands." On October 8, 1869, Apostle George A. Smith taught that "a plurality of husbands is wrong." His wife, Bathsheba Smith, was asked in 1892 if it would "be a violation of the laws of the church for one woman to have two husbands living at the same time." She replied, "I think it would." All of these individuals were involved with Nauvoo polygamy, and several were undoubtedly aware of Joseph Smith's sealings to legally married women, yet they made no effort to condone sexual polyandry, nor is there any evidence that any man but Joseph Smith engaged in polyandry in Nauvoo.

Nauvoo detractors likewise say nothing about sexual polyandry

Hales remarks:

A fourth group of polygamy insiders who may have left a record is comprised of the detractors. William Law, though a member of Joseph Smith's First Presidency, denounced plural marriage and accused Joseph Smith of adultery....In his split with Joseph Smith in the spring of 1844, the fact that Law did not accuse the Prophet of sexual polyandry and never mentioned it so far as available documents indicate, is surprising. Polyandrous sexuality would have been more shocking that adultery at that time and place. So the absence of any reference to it suggests that Law was unaware of conjugality in those unions or purposefully chose to ignore them altogether. In the end, Law settled for a less explosive charge of adultery.

Hales also points out that John C. Bennett likewise did not invoke polyandry in his charges against Joseph:

Even more impressive is the fact th[at] John C. Bennett, who claimed knowledge of seven of Joseph Smith's plural marriages to civily married women and even identified three by name...did not accuse the Prophet of sexual polyandry. He reported polyandrous marriages without distinguishing them from nonpolyandrous polygamous unions and without recruiting the presumably offended husbands to joint his crusade against Joseph....

Bennett and Francis [Higbee] together named more than a dozen persons who they thought were likely candidates to join in denunciations of Joseph Smith's improprieties; but none of these individuals were polyandrous husbands (who, logically speaking, would have been prime candidates to protect their family's honor) nor did they mention sexual polyandry as one of Joseph's alleged numerous misdeeds.

If any of Joseph Smith's opponents had suspected the presence of sexual polyandry, their silence on the subject is puzzling. The standard of frontier justice regarding a sexually molested woman generally allowed a father, husband, brother, or son to exact revenge by beating, horsewhipping, or even killing the perpetrator.

Evidence from the "Temple Lot" case of non-consummation of polyandrous marriages

Hales has identified a further line of evidence which suggests that polyandrous marriages were not consummated. In 1892, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS, now Community of Christ) brought suit against the Hendrickite, or "Temple Lot" break-off group. They claimed that the Independence, Missouri temple site was rightfully RLDS property, since they were the direct heirs of Joseph Smith's original religious group.

Although not embracing plural marriage themselves, the Temple Lot group was anxious to demonstrate that Joseph Smith had taught plural marriage--for, if this was so, then the RLDS (who denied that Joseph had practiced it, and certainly did not embrace the doctrine) would have difficulty proving that they were the direct successors to the church founded by Joseph.

Hales reports:

Nine of Joseph Smith's plural wives were still living when depositions started at Salt Lake City on March 14, 1892. Three were polyandrous wives (Zina Huntington Jacobs Young, Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner, and Patty Bartlett Sessions) and six were nonpolyandrous (Helen Mar Kimball, Martha McBride, Almera Johnson, Emily Partridge, Malissa Lott, and Lucy Walker.) Factors evidently affecting the choice of witnesses involved the health and travel distances for the women, and importantly, whether their polygamous marriages to the Prophet included conjugality. Non-sexual sealings would have been treated as spiritual marriages of little importance and would have played right into the hands of RLDS attorneys....

All three of Joseph Smith's polyandrous wives lived in or relatively near Salt Lake City and were apparently willing to testify but were bypassed. General Relief Society President Zina D. Huntington was in good health, living only a few blocks from the deposition room. Yet she was not summoned. Likewise, polyandrous wife Mary Elizabeth Rollins was well known to Church leaders and resided in Ogden, thirty-eight miles north of Salt Lake City. She was not requested to appear, not was Patty Bartlett Sessions, who lived in Bountiful ten miles north of Salt Lake City. Patty was ninety-seven, probably a sufficient reason to pass her by....

Among nonpolyandrous wives who were not summoned was Martha McBride who lived in Hooper, Utah (thirty-seven miles to the north). McBride's relationship with Joseph Smith is poorly documented, with no evidence of sexual relations....Also passed by was Salt Lake resident Helen Mar Kimball who had written two books defending the practice of plural marriage. Her sealing to the Prophet ocurred when she was only fourteen and the presence or absence of sexual relations in her plural marriage is debated by historians.

Throughout the length question-and-answer sessions with Malissa Lott, Emily Partridge, and Lucy Walker, the details of their polygamous marriages with Joseph Smith were paramount; the physical aspect of sexuality was a core issue. If Zina and/or Mary Elizabeth could not testify to such relations, their testimonies as the Prophet's polygamous wives could hurt the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) cause.

Would polyandrous testimony have been harmful to the Church, and so avoided?

Hales goes on to note that there is another possible explanation for the absence of polyandrous wives from the Temple Lot testimony:

...it might be reasoned that they avoided testifying because their answers might have revealed polyandrous sexuality, which would have been embarrassing and doctrinally problematic.

This second option seems less likely because, six years later, Zina willingly engaged in a formal interview (later published) with an RLDS elder, John Wight, who at one point asked: 'Then it is a fact, Mrs. Young ,is it not, that you married Mr. Smith at the same time you were married to Mr. Jacobs?" to which Zina immediately responded: "What right do you have to ask such questions? I was sealed to Joseph Smith for eternity." Zina's willingness to be interviewed by an RLDS inquisitor in 1898 suggests she would have been equally willing to face RLDS attorneys in 1892. However, her 1898 responses would not have been helpful to the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) at that time, had she been asked to testify.

Similarly, in 1905, Mary Elizabeth spoke freely to missionaries at BYU and even answered a direct question "concerning her husband [Adam Lightner]." She explained: "My husband did not belong to the Church. I begged and pled with him to join but he would not. He said he did not believe in it though he thought a great deal of Joseph. He sacrificed his property rather than testify against Joseph, Hyrum, and Geo. A. Smith. After he said this I went forward and was sealed to Joseph for Eternity." In other words, she, like Zina, explained that she was "sealed to Joseph for Eternity." This testimony, which stopped short of sexual relations, would not have strengthened the Temple Lot Church's case.

In their responses, both women spoke of their polyandrous relationships with Joseph Smith without any hint of sexual polyandry or the need to justify and defend it. Also, documents indicate that if Church leaders in 1892 were worried about hiding Joseph Smith's polyandrous marriages (because of sexuality or other concerns), it would have been the first time such anxieties are identifiable in the historical record. [Neither Joseph F. Smith affidavits from 1869 or Andrew Jenson's notes from 1887] seemed to treat polyandrous plural marriages as problematic.

Conclusion

It may be Joseph's first polyandrous sealings were undertaken to protect his relationship with Emma, while still fulfilling the angel's command to implement plurality. Did he hope that the "less difficult" polyandrous and levirate marriages would satisfy the commandment? Or, at the very least, were the polyandrous marriages intended to prepare both Emma and the Saints for the numerous, more difficult "single woman" plural marriages that would follow?

Such a reconstruction must remain speculative, especially since relatively little is known about the polyandrous marriages. It would, however, explain why Joseph chose to enter the "most difficult" or "most risky" marriages first—they would have been, contrary to what we might first expect, the easiest.

This is not to argue that such marriages must not or could not involve sexuality. However, assuming full sexuality in these relationships makes less sense of the available data.

Is it reasonable to think that Nauvoo plural marriages had different levels of "sexual access"? Modern readers are inclined to think of marriage as mostly—or entirely—about cohabitation, but it is not clear that the early Saints saw things in this way.

For example, Utah-era polygamy had a wide range of marriage types, each of which entailed different responsibilities and degrees of sexual access. Kathryn Daynes has noted the following varieties of LDS marriages:[55]

• Civil marriages (for time only)
• Marriage for time and eternity
• Marriage for eternity only (no sexual access)
• Marriage for time only (i.e., by proxy)
• Marriages of young children (no cohabitation was permitted until the partners were older; such marriages were often never consummated, and were later cancelled when one of the partners chose to marry a different love match).
• "Convenience only" marriages: these unusual arrangements allowed for childless couples to conceive in an era which lacked assisted reproductive technology. Under prophetic approval, the couple would choose a fellow member to marry the childless wife following their own divorce. The new husband would impregnate the spouse, receive a divorce from her, and the childless couple would remarry and raise the child as their own. The "donor" husband had no on-going rights of sexual access or duties to support the wife or child.

It is clear, then, that later polygamy easily contemplated relationships which did not involve sexual access. If Joseph had implemented such variation in Nauvoo, then Brigham Young's later decision to endorse a variety of marriage forms is even more understandable.

See also Brian Hales' discussion

Joseph Smith and Polyandry: Common questions

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Learn more about polygamy: polyandry

Key sources	Brian C. Hales, "'Joseph Smith’s Sexual Polyandry and the Emperor’s New Clothes: On Closer Inspection, What Do We Find?'," Proceedings of the 2012 FAIR Conference (August 2012). link Brian Hales' site: Sexual Polyandry: Common questions
Wiki links	Question: What do we know about Joseph Smith's "polyandrous" sealings or plural marriages? Question: Were there sexual relations in Joseph's marriages to women with living husbands? Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage
FAIR links	Ugo Perego, "Joseph Smith DNA Revealed: New Clues from the Prophet’s Genes," Proceedings of the 2008 FAIR Conference (August 2008). link
Navigators	Table of contents Abuse Bible Book of Abraham Book of Mormon CES Letter Church history Church finances Doctrine and Covenants First Vision Joseph Smith Latter-day Saint temples Mountain Meadows Massacre Plural marriage Prophets and leaders Scripture Brigham Young polygamy

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 302. ( Index of claims ) Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1997). ( Index of claims ) John Dehlin, "Questions and Answers," Mormon Stories Podcast (25 June 2014). Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson, Mormonism 101. Examining the Religion of the Latter-day Saints (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 2000), Chapter 17. ( Index of claims ) MormonThink.com website (as of 28 April 2012). Page: http://mormonthink.com/joseph-smith-polygamy.htm Richard N. and Joan K. Ostling, Mormon America: The Power and the Promise, (New York:HarperCollins Publishers, 2000), 59. ( Index of claims ) Richard S. Van Wagoner, Mormon Polygamy: A History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), Chapter 4.

FAIR Answers—back to home page

V

Articles about Plural marriage

Doctrinal foundation of plural marriage	Purpose of plural marriage Plural marriage as a requirement for exaltation Plural marriage in early Christianity Plural marriage in the Book of Mormon Plural marriage and the Bible
Introduction of plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage 1835 Doctrine and Covenants denies polygamy Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Plural marriage and the law
Questions about Joseph Smith and plural marriage	Initiation of the practice of plural marriage Fanny Alger was Joseph Smith's first plural wife Joseph Smith hid polygamy from the general Church membership Joseph Smith's marriages to young women Did Joseph Smith coerce women to marry him? Mormon women refusing offers of plural marriage Polyandry Joseph Smith and children through plural marriage Marrying other men's wives? Joseph Smith hiding plural marriages from his first wife, Emma Emma Smith's reaction to Joseph Smith's plural marriages Emma Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 132 Did Joseph have lustful motives for practicing polygamy? Did Joseph Smith send men on missions in order to steal their wives? Did Joseph Smith practice polygamy for the purpose of monetary gain?
John C. Bennett and Nauvoo polygamy	Bennett before Nauvoo Bennett and Prostitution Brothel at Nauvoo Rise and Fall of Bennett Sarah Pratt Nancy Rigdon Sidney Rigdon
Plural wives of Joseph Smith	Divine manifestations to plural wives and families Emma Smith Fanny Alger Louisa Beaman Prescindia Lathrop Huntington Buell Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Elizabeth Davis Goldsmith Brackenbury Durfee Esther Dutcher Hannah S. Ells Olive Grey Frost Desdemona Catlin Wadsworth Fulmmer Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris Clarissa Reed Hancock Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes Sarah Maryetta Kingsley Howe Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde Vienna Jacques Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs Almera Johnson Helen Mar Kimball Maria Lawrence Sarah Lawrence Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner Malissa Lott Sylvia Sessions Lyon Martha McBride Eliza Partridge Emily Partridge Rhoda Richards Ruth Vose Sayers Patty Bartlett Sessions Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman "Miss Smith" Mary Heron Snider Eliza R. Snow Lucy Walker Sarah Ann Whitney Nancy Maria Winchester Flora Ann Woodworth Fanny Young
Plural marriage in Utah	Difficulties with plural marriage Brigham Young's statements regarding plural marriage John Taylor's statements regarding polygamy Latter-day Saints and divorce in the nineteenth century Prevalence of plural marriage in Utah
End of plural marriage	The First Manifesto Official Declaration Number 1 Plural marriage practiced after the First Manifesto The Church of Jesus Christ and plural marriage today

John C. Bennett Prior to Nauvoo

It would seem that appearance is now considered of more moment than reality.

—John C. Bennett, Mayor of Nauvoo

Probably nothing caused Joseph more difficulty in fulfilling the command to establish plural marriage than the August 1840 arrival of John C. Bennett in Nauvoo. In the short space of 20 months, Bennett would exploit the true doctrine of plural marriage for his own purposes, employing the confidentiality the doctrine then required to cloak his iniquity (see  (needs URL / links)). This inevitably pressed upon Joseph the multiple necessities of complying with the divine revelation and warning that he must implement it, denying that Bennett's teachings were authorized while unable to fully explain why, preventing the unwary from succumbing to Bennett’s seductions, protecting himself and the Saints from anti-Mormon violence, and out-maneuvering Emma Smith's attempt to use the Relief Society to oppose the doctrines she knew had been revealed to her husband, but about which she was in constant turmoil (see  (needs URL / links)).

When Bennett arrived in August 1840, he appeared to have brought with him a stellar character, a high education, and a long list of exemplary accomplishments. Publicizing these ably, and with an undeniable charm, he quickly ingratiated himself with many of the Latter-day Saints. Given the unctuous letters he had written to Joseph before his arrival, Bennett clearly had his sights set on influencing the prophet.

When he extracted himself from Nauvoo less than two years later it would be apparent to all but the willfully complicit that he was a classic psychopath. The leaders and Saints would, of course, not have known that term, nor would they have been able to describe his character in clinical terms; but they were fully aware of the moral and ethical vacuum constituted by such a personality, and that John C. Bennett fit the diagnosis. They knew enough: he was a liar, a con-artist, a fraud, and a seducer of innocent women. That would have been enough for 1842 Nauvoo; but today’s readers want more detail, and we can give it to them.

Bennett's Character

We should be skeptical of many historians' efforts to see historical figures through the lens of psychiatry (often with minimal training in psychology or psychiatry). Such historians often manifest a prescience and certainty that would make a mental health worker jealous, and they often rely on little more than warmed-over Freudianism and a mixture of pop psychology gleaned here and there. Although a writer may not intend to engage in "psychobiography," many do so anyway. This approach often obscures more than it reveals, and tells us more about the author and his biases than his subject.

We will now risk disregarding this advice, having altered ourselves to the pitfalls. Bennett is sufficiently obvious, however, that we can conclude with some confidence that he was a classic example of what we would now call an anti-social personality disorder. Even a freshman diagnostician would have no trouble recognizing that John C. Bennett "passes" with flying colors.

Anti-social personality and psychopathy

Anti-sociality is more easily diagnosed in retrospect than most psychiatric disorders because most of the criteria revolve around behaviour, rather than the patient's inner state. Sociopaths "lack any enduring sympathy or fellow-feeling…[they] evidence a remarkable degree of selfishness and egocentricity."

DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder

A. There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

(1) failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest

(2) deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure

(3) impulsivity or failure to plan ahead

(4) irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults

(5) reckless disregard for safety of self or others

(6) consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations

(7) lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

B. The individual is at least age 18 years.

C. There is evidence of conduct disorder with onset before age 15 years.

D. The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or a manic episode.

Of course, Bennett could fool us too, and so our diagnosis must remain provisional. We also do not have enough information to assess Bennett's behaviour before age eighteen. The record is clear, however, that as an adult he demonstrated virtually every anti-social trait.

A small subset of sociopaths can be classed as severe "psychopaths"—such individuals demonstrate a "callous and remorseless disregard for…others," coupled with an "aggressive narcissism." Robert Hare's twenty-point psychopathy checklist is often used to assess these traits, and even at historical distance Bennett does not fare well.

Hare Psychopathy Checklist—Revised

1. Glibness/superficial charm

2. Grandiose sense of self-worth

3. Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom

4. Pathological lying

5. Conning/manipulative

6. Lack of remorse or guilt

7. Shallow affect [i.e., restricted emotional range]

8. Callous/lack of empathy

9. Parasitic lifestyle

10. Poor behavioral controls

11. Promiscuous sexual behavior

12. Early behavioral problems

13. Lack of realistic long-term goals

14. Impulsivity

15. Irresponsibility

16. Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

17. Many short-term marital relationships

18. Juvenile delinquency

19. Revocation of conditional release

20. Criminal versatility

Given the insidious characteristics of the psychopath, it is not surprising that even the astute and prescient B.H. Roberts, with the benefit of hindsight, would later write:

[t]here is a strong temptation, when the whole truth about this man is known, to regard him as an adventurer and a wicked man from the beginning. But those who had, perhaps, the best opportunity to know him held that his motives for coming to Nauvoo were honest, that his intentions in life at that time were honorable, but that he fell into transgression and would not repent.

And Elder Roberts may even have been right, though we may doubt it. Psychopaths have been known to use a change in location and occupation in a fruitless attempt at a "new start." We should not ignore the possible influence of the Holy Spirit, which could have urged Bennett to shed what even he knew was a deeply flawed character. In any event, giving him the benefit of the initial doubt does the historian no harm, although it devastated the Latter-day Saints at Nauvoo.

Given the amazing deceptive abilities of the practiced psychopath, it is not surprising that he could charm B. H. Roberts in spite of all he knew of what came later. Bennett charmed the equally guileless Joseph Smith, who had none of Robert’s historical hindsight. Given Joseph’s open and welcoming nature, it would have been surprising had he not made Bennett his friend at once. His amazing ability to accept people at face value, never doubting that their motives were as pure as his own, has many exemplars. The case of W.W. Phelps is one.

W.W. Phelps case

Phelps had betrayed Joseph and the Church during the Missouri persecutions, and contributed to Joseph's confinement in Liberty Jail. His signature was on the petition that resulted in the extermination order which led to the Saints' murder and dispossession. After receiving a penitent letter from Phelps, Joseph quickly responded

I must say that it is with no ordinary feelings I endeavor to write a few lines to you… I am rejoiced at the privilege granted me… when we read your letter—truly our hearts were melted into tenderness and compassion when we ascertained your resolves… It is true, that we have suffered much in consequence of your behavior… we say it is your privilege to be delivered from the powers of the adversary, be brought into the liberty of God's dear children, and again take your stand among the Saints of the Most High, and by diligence, humility, and love unfeigned, commend yourself to our God, and your God, and to the Church of Jesus Christ…

Believing your confession to be real, and your repentance genuine, I shall be happy once again to give you the right hand of fellowship, and rejoice over the returning prodigal…

"Come on, dear brother, since the war is past,

For friends at first, are friends again at last."

So it was that Joseph, while willing to do almost anything―from taking up arms, to petitioning presidents, to launching a campaign of disinformation―to protect the revealed Restoration and the Latter-day Saints, repeatedly opened himself to abuse and worse because of his total inability to think the worst of someone in advance of the evidence. Joseph assumed that all men were as purely motivated as he was. "It takes a con to know a con," and Joseph wasn’t a con. Bennett gained himself the trust of the prophet and the confidence of the Saints, and in his wake left seduced women, broken hearts, and a prophet with a tarnished reputation.

Bennett's Pre-Nauvoo Career

If ever a wolf wore sheep’s clothing, none ever wore it as stylishly or better fitted than had John C. Bennett. He sowed confusion and weakened faith in 1840–42 Nauvoo, and he continues to do so even today, as those as hostile to Joseph's mission as Bennett himself still rely uncritically on his perjury. We are compelled, then, to turn to the tawdry details, since a brief review of Bennett's history before he joined Joseph Smith is essential to assessing the evidence which he provides, and for understanding the dynamics of Nauvoo. Bennett's Career Before Nauvoo

If history hadn’t taught us better, there is no question that Bennett’s early career looked both altruistic and promising. It would have taken a practiced observer with his attention trained on Bennett’s every move to appreciate what was really going on. Small wonder that the state of Illinois made Bennett a quartermaster, or that the Mormons were glad to have such an accomplished citizen in Nauvoo.

Born in 1804, Bennett completed a medical apprenticeship and began practice at age twenty-one. Bennett simultaneously worked as a Methodist preacher, and tried to use his Methodist connections to support the establishment of a university in Ohio. When the Methodists were not enthusiastic, Bennett abandoned their church and became one of Alexander Campbell's Christian Disciples—one suspects with the same goal in mind. When Ohio firmly rejected the proposed institution, Bennett changed his field of operations and immediately used the Disciples as sponsors to solicit Virginia to establish a university and medical college.

Virginia yielded and the institution was established, but trouble beset the university almost at once. As part of his promotional effort, Bennett had presented the state with an impressive roster of faculty and trustees. The problem was, however, that "Bennett had not obtained permission to use all the names listed as faculty and trustees." Unable to live up to his representations, within a few months, Bennett abandoned the area and moved on, thus presaging a course of hit and run misrepresentation that he would follow for life. Those familiar with sociopaths will find little surprising.

Before the end of 1832, Bennett's was the first name on a petition for the formation of yet another college—this time in Indiana—and again claiming that the Christian Disciples were sponsors. As in Virginia, the college was founded, but also as in Virginia, problems arose almost immediately. Two prominent Disciples were listed as sponsors, but one startled man said he "had no knowledge, nor hint" that such a college was contemplated, and another regarded the inclusion of his name on the petition as "an absolute forgery and 'declined every and all connection' with the college."

Alexander Campbell himself was taken by surprise, since "the members of the Christian Disciples had not been contacted [by Bennett] before the proposal was submitted." The understandable lack of enthusiasm by the Disciples doomed the new scheme, since Bennett had counted on their ability to raise funds to procure the money he needed. Bennett raised $54, which he kept, claiming it was due to him for out-of-pocket expenses of $150 he said he had incurred. Never easily discouraged or unresourceful, Bennett then set out to raise money by selling bogus degrees from Christian College.

A medical diploma mill

Most physicians of the era, like Bennett, learned their craft via an apprenticeship, and had not attended medical school. For a doctor to have a degree was thus relatively rare and prestigious. Those with degrees enjoyed an advantage in the building of a practice. Having thus correctly assessed the market for degrees—and not holding a degree himself—Bennett set out to satisfy the demand by providing degrees to "anyone who passed examinations or was otherwise obviously qualified." If he ever had good intentions, Bennett quickly abandoned them and began bestowing a variety of medical, legal, and other degrees on virtually anyone almost immediately. He gave free degrees to anyone of influence with whom he could thus curry favour, and sold degrees to anyone who wanted one and could pay the price. One observer complained that Bennett "rained down his [degrees] like a shower of hail," while another charged that the diplomas went to "any ignoramus who could raise ten dollars to buy one…though they were not worth a cent." Some students graduated after only a few days, and other degree recipients were not even aware they had been granted a degree. Bennett thus has the dubious distinction of operating the United States' first diploma mill.

Not surprisingly, when the New York County Medical Society heard of Bennett’s lucrative trade in degrees, they denounced both the degrees and Bennett. Also not surprisingly, by the winter of 1833–1834, Bennett had petitioned for another university. What is amazing is that it was back in Ohio—the people of which, Bennett apparently thought, had remarkably short memories. Bad memories or not, fortunately for Ohio, the Medical Society's complaint reached the Ohio senate, and notwithstanding Bennett’s persistence, this scheme also failed.

Throughout much of the period of this fascinating failure, Bennett had been a Mason, which increased both his influence and respectability. By February 1834, however, the Masons had got wind of Bennett’s shenanigans, and were not amused. Bennett was brought up on charges before the brotherhood. From those charges we learn that along with fraudulent financing and fake diploma peddling, Bennett had likely been busy at other activities. "The charges included gambling, lying, vending diplomas for money to persons who [were unqualified] and professing to be an officer or surgeon in the U.S. Army when he was not." Bennett apparently felt it was either undignified or impossible to answer those charges, and by July 1834 was promoting yet another university, without ever addressing the issues raised by the Masons.

By this time Bennett appears to have learned that it was unwise to strike twice in the same place, and so had turned his charms upon the trustees of Willoughby College, Lake Erie, who permitted him to solicit funds in its behalf. Indeed, in a remarkable change of fortune Bennett was soon made a professor, and entrusted with the establishment of the institution's medical college. Never one to allow reality to impede his enthusiasm, Bennett touted the new college in glowing terms, insisting that its "facilities [were] equal to any other college in the Union," though it occupied only a single two-level building. Bennett further claimed that all the faculty held M.D. degrees, which was true, to a point. Three had earned legitimate M.D. degrees; the rest had obtained theirs from Bennett’s Christian College diploma mill.

Bennett's opponents from the Christian College debacle soon realized what he was up to. They complained that he was signing his name as "J.C." instead of "John Cook" to avoid detection, and again went after Bennett for his practice of granting unearned diplomas. It appears that they may have been just in time. In fact, "Bennett [seems to have] examined students alone and then agreed to graduate them. An alumni directory for Willloughby University published years later did not list the names of students who received degrees during the first year, implying that these first-year degrees were considered bogus."

The Willoughby trustees fired Bennett. As he had with Christian College, Bennett claimed to have raised less money for Willoughby than he had spent fund-raising, and so kept all the money he had received. He was soon charged with "financial impropriety and dishonesty."

All the while continuing to sell bogus degrees, still bearing the imprimatur of Christian College, Bennett—whose repertoire of cons appears to have been limited for the moment to fraudulent fund raising and the selling of fake sheepskins—tried to establish still another school in Massillon: which is in Ohio! It came to naught. By September 1835, he approached Allegheny College with what was probably a forged letter from Ripley College—also in his beloved Ohio. The letter claimed that Ripley (which was, in fact, "little more than a prep school,") had granted Bennett authority to grant diplomas and start a medical college at Allegheny in association with Ripley.

Bennett publicized his planned college, but the Allegheny trustees countered by publicizing their refusal to have anything to do with Bennett. Bennett then announced that a medical college would be founded at Erie, back in Ohio, in association with the bogus Ripley College of the same state. (Here we see Bennett branching out to a third con: using one bogus institution to raise funds for another.) Duly organized, the Sylvanian Medical College followed the same template as Bennett's other educational undertakings. Four students graduated during the four months of the college's operation. Some of the faculty were granted bogus MD and LLD degrees—from Bennett's stock of Christian College diplomas.

Frequent moves

Between 1835–1838, Bennett lived in at least six different towns in three states. By the winter of 1838–1839, he was ready to plough new ground, and moved to Illinois. Perhaps not coincidentally, records show that someone proposed the establishment of a medical college in Warsaw, Illinois, the following year. Any chance of a coincidence evaporates when we learn that "[t]he effort failed and was considered a humbug…No direct connection between the college and Bennett has been uncovered, but most names connected with it were pseudonyms, and the college was an exact replica of Bennett's earlier efforts…right down to the selling of degrees."

Bennett was appointed quartermaster general for Illinois on July 20, 1840. Five days later, he wrote to Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, informing them that to their great good fortune he was moving to Nauvoo. As we shall soon see, he was forsaking the cons that had failed him for so long, and was set to enter into what we may be forgiven for assuming he saw as "the religion business." Con number four had begun.

Bennett On The Couch

The foregoing sketch is sufficient to establish Bennett's sociopathy beyond all reasonable doubt. Bennett's diploma mill scheme and repeated financial improprieties clearly violated social norms. He repeatedly forged documents or signed others' names to petitions, and may have used multiple pseudonyms on petitions. His casual sale of bogus medical degrees evinces a callous disregard for the safety of untrained physicians' future patients. A law unto himself, "Bennett granted diplomas in numerous academic areas, including law, divinity, and the arts and sciences. Bennett had few, if any qualifications that justified his examining anyone or conferring degrees in these areas." These facts alone meet the requirement for three anti-social traits under DSM-IV (see above).

Bennett's entire life was characterized by a singular lack of remorse, which is perhaps the defining characteristic of the sociopath. "Despite a life of serial intrigues," wrote his biographer, Bennett "expressed no regrets or remorse for the ones that failed or harmed others…He craved public recognition and was often more interested in promoting his image than in making substantive contributions." Bennett was a master of self-promotion and self-justification; no lie or stratagem troubled him. While certainly a skilled publicist, Bennett was erratic and easily distracted. Upon marrying, he moved five times before 1831, another five times between 1831–1835, and at least six times before joining the Saints at Nauvoo. His frequent moves suggest an unwillingness to consistently accept and meet financial and professional obligations:

The normal practice of staying at one job and living in one place is often too confining for sociopaths. Should it not suit them, they simply may not go to work; quitting one job after another or being fired for insubordination is common…"Moving on" is a common theme. Some sociopaths travel from town to town and state to state; roots are not put down; being transient becomes a way of life…

In fact, of all the potential sociopathic criteria, only violence seems absent from Bennett's character.

Bennett also scores high on Hare's measure of psychopathy (see above). Historical distance makes it difficult to assess his affect or juvenile behaviour (points #7, #12, and #18), and different standards of law enforcement and incarceration make the legal issues (points #19, 20) less relevant. He easily scores positive, however, on at least fourteen of Hare's points. Prominent among these are his glib charisma and grandiosity. (The analyst encounters an embarrassment of riches when Bennett compares himself to Napoleon, and comes out on top: "And how much more superior was my object than his!" The frontispiece of his book even shows him in a Napoleonic pose.

His Nauvoo-era sexual adventurism, involvement in prostitution, medical exploitation of patients, and possible homosexuality further flaunted social norms. His wife had already left him because of his serial infidelities. His post-Mormon history further illustrates his willingness to cynically use religious belief as a lever for his own power. Even apostate Mormons rejected Bennett as utterly untrustworthy, though his account was leavened with some facts.

Bennett's more sedate later years also support my diagnosis, since "the majority of [sociopaths] seem to 'burn out' by the age of 45. After that, the frequency of antisocial acts is quite low."

Nauvoo member Joseph Fielding summed Bennett in an apt sentence:

"no description of this Man's Characture could be to[o] bad, he was a vile Man…."

John C. Bennett and prostitution in Nauvoo

[Joseph Smith had] a too implicit trust in [men's] protestations of repentance when overtaken in their sins; a too great tenacity in friendship for men he had once taken into his confidence after they had been proven unworthy of the friendship.…

—Brigham H. Roberts

Following his departure from Nauvoo, one of John C. Bennett's first attacks on Joseph Smith accused him of attempting the seduction of Sidney Rigdon's daughter, Nancy, in April 1842. Bennett claimed that George W. Robinson (Sidney's son-in-law) and Francis M. Higbee (Nancy's boyfriend) could confirm the tale, and called on them to do so. Of all the charges leveled against Joseph, this is perhaps the most convoluted. The story began with Bennett in 1841, involved Nancy by 1842, and some essential facts did not come to light until 1844.

Bennett and Prostitution

Bennett was not content with seducing the women of Nauvoo privately. Brigham Young later told him that "one charge was seducing young women, and leading young men into difficulty—he admitted it—if he had let young men and women alone it would have been better for him." Young was essentially charging Bennett with prostitution.

A teacher named John Taylor, not to be confused with the third president of the Church, wrote later of Bennett's establishment of a brothel in Nauvoo: "John C. Bennett and a lot of them built an ill-fame house near the Temple in Nauvoo.... After they had built it, John C. Bennett and the Fosters,—I knew all their names at the time, they were the head men of it, after they got it built, they wrote on it in large letters what it was,—a sign declaring what it was, and what it was there for...." The Mormons were not amused, since "We could not get [to meeting] without passing this house and looking right at it, and one or two thousand people would go…[past it] on a Sabbath and they didn't feel very good seeing that house there with great big letters facing them." After Bennett's departure, they "took the building, and put it on rollers; and there was a deep gully there, and they pitched the house into it." While mayor, Bennett also reportedly tried to prevent the city council from disposing of a "house of ill fame."

Not only did Bennett encourage vice, but he took steps to ensure that his followers did not suffer the consequences. He was repeatedly accused of "embryo infanticide" and his biographer observes that this charge "was likely true." The accusation is plausible, since it derives from both Mormons (Hyrum Smith, Zeruiah Goddard) and their enemies (Sarah Pratt). Bennett probably had the requisite expertise, since he had been twice professor of obstetrics or midwifery while promoting medical colleges. In 1837, a medical class wrote Bennett and requested that his lecture notes be made available "for publication in pamphlet form…that the practice of obstetric medicine would be rendered much less onerous to the operator, and safer for the female." The request demonstrates that others besides Bennett considered him an expert in women's issues. This is one of the few times when Bennett's help was sought, rather than aggressively self-promoted.

Bennett also used his medical skills to treat at least one patient for venereal disease—Chauncey Higbee's younger brother, Francis M. Higbee. He was unsuccessful.

"Too Indelicate for the Public"

Desperate for a cure, Higbee asked Joseph Smith for help. "A French woman," (likely a prostitute) from Warsaw caused Higbee's need for "medical assistance…Dr. Bennet[t] attended him, Joseph Smith administered unto him but it was irksome," recalled one witness. "Higbee assented that it was so, he did not contradict it, he promised to reform—he would do better, he would do so no more."

Joseph would later speak of troubling events involving Bennett and Higbee which likely date to this period. He claimed that it "occurred a long time before John C. Bennet[t] left [t]his city." A 1841 date seems more plausible than the spring prior to Bennett's 1842 departure. Joseph reported, "I was called on to visit Francis M. Higbee; I went and found him on a bed on the floor." At this point, the editor of the ‘‘Times and Seasons’’ felt that the material was too graphic for public consumption, and inserted the following parenthetical remark:

Here follows testimony which is too indelicate for the public eye or ear; and we would here remark, that so revolting, corrupt, and disgusting has been the conduct of most of this clique, that we feel to dread having any thing to do with the publication of their trials; we will not however offend the public eye or ear with a repetition of the foulness of their crimes any more.

What, then, was so terrible that the ‘‘Times and Seasons’’ would not print it? By this time—May 1844—the war of affidavits and words against Bennett had included charges of seduction, adultery, attempted murder, prostitution, and abortion. What could be worse? Novelist Samuel W. Taylor "concluded that the only charge that was worse than what was already published was sodomy. Taylor presumed that Higbee was with Bennett on the floor."

Bennett's biographer also details how after Nauvoo "he [may have] had a passionate relationship with Pierce B. Fagen." Bennett certainly felt strongly about Fagen. "[T]his attraction might well have been of a passionate nature, at least on Bennett's part" but "no further information" is available. D. Michael Quinn is convinced of Bennett's homosexuality, but Quinn's tendency to refract evidence through the lens of his own homosexual proclivities makes him a weak witness.

The only other mention of homosexual sin in Nauvoo came from William Smith, whose no-holds-barred editorial style led him to attack Bennett as guilty of "adultery, fornication and—we were going to say (Buggery)." Bennett's biographer notes that no evidence was presented, "and perhaps [this charge] was made in the heat of battle." While this is possible, I think it more likely that William had at least heard rumours, though Joseph was not then willing to tell all he knew, and risk alienating Francis Higbee completely. As will be seen, Higbee was close to the Rigdon family, and the charge of buggery against Bennett appeared less than a month after Bennett's accusations regarding Nancy appeared. William's remark is perhaps best seen as a warning to Higbee, who Bennett was encouraging to attack Joseph.

Brigham Young testified that a few days after his return from England in July 1841, Bennett "acknowledged that Higbee had the [a blank is here inserted by the editor, rather than naming the venereal disease] and that he had doctored him, he acknowledged that, and a great deal more." Higbee's immorality was revealed at the same time as the first accusations of seduction against Bennett (see PREVIOUS CHAPTER). Anxious to placate Joseph and the other leaders, Bennett betrayed Higbee's confidence and disclosed his medical problem to the prophet. As Hyrum Smith remembered, "Francis did not say any thing about his sickness, but Dr. Bennet[t] made those observations to him [Joseph] that he had doctored him in the time of his sickness." Hyrum later insisted that eventually Higbee too "had confessed to him that he had had the [blank] !"

It seems that Higbee's behaviour came to light at about the time when Bennett's seductions were first discovered in the summer of 1841. Higbee did not, reportedly, fight the charges—like Bennett, he frankly admitted them. Brigham Young recalled how downcast Higbee and Bennett were: "when I came into the room, Francis Higbee rather recoiled and wished to withdraw; he went out and sat upon a pile of wood. He said it is all true, I am sorry for it, I wish it had never happened…."

Higbee's intense shame may give credence to the homosexual charges—while fornication was frowned on, it was at least understood. For nineteenth century Americans—especially religious ones—homosexual behaviour was beyond the pale. Bennett was not shy about accusing Joseph and the Mormons of every imaginary crime. They were supposedly

guilty of infidelity, deism, atheism; lying, deception, blasphemy; debauchery, lasciviousness, bestiality; madness, fraud, plunder; larceny, burglary, robbery, perjury; fornication, adultery, rape, incest; arson, treason, and murder; and they have out-heroded Herod, and out-deviled the devil, slandered God Almighty, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Angels.

Despite this encyclopaedic parade of evil—including rape, incest, and bestiality—Bennett is silent on homosexual issues. Perhaps he knew that topic was best left quiet.

Whatever the truth of the homosexual charges, the matter of Higbee's immorality in 1841 seems to have been handled quietly by Joseph and a few leaders; no formal record of Church discipline has been found. We have already seen the same approach with Bennett and Sarah Pratt (see  (needs URL / links)).

Was there a brothel in Nauvoo near the temple?

There was indeed a brothel in Nauvoo that was operated by John C. Bennett, who tried to block legal action against it

It is claimed that the presence of a brothel in Nauvoo near the temple demonstrates the moral degeneracy of the Mormons. There was indeed a brothel in Nauvoo, however, it was operated by John C. Bennett, who tried to block legal action against it once the Mormons found out about it. It was disposed of when Bennett's actions were unmasked, and he left Nauvoo in disgrace vowing revenge.

John C. Bennett was not content with seducing the women of Nauvoo privately. Brigham Young later told him that "one charge was seducing young women, and leading young men into difficulty—he admitted it—if he had let young men and women alone it would have been better for him." Young was essentially charging Bennett with encouraging or facilitating prostitution.

Bennett built the brothel and placed a large sign on the front that was visible to everyone that passed it

Taylor wrote,

John C. Bennett and a lot of them built an ill-fame house near the Temple in Nauvoo.... After they had built it, John C. Bennett and the Fosters,—I knew all their names at the time, they were the head men of it, after they got it built, they wrote on it in large letters what it was,—a sign declaring what it was, and what it was there for...."

The Mormons were not amused, and they pushed the building into a nearby ravine

The Mormons were not amused, since "We could not get [to meeting] without passing this house and looking right at it, and one or two thousand people would go…[past it] on a Sabbath and they didn't feel very good seeing that house there with great big letters facing them." After Bennett's departure, they "took the building, and put it on rollers; and there was a deep gully there, and they pitched the house into it." While mayor, Bennett also reportedly tried to prevent the city council from disposing of a "house of ill fame."

⍗

Source(s) of the criticism—John C. Bennett's brothel in Nauvoo

Critical sources

Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 269. ( Index of claims )

John C. Bennett in Nauvoo

…as you cannot always tell the wicked from the righteous, therefore I say unto you, hold your peace until I shall see fit to make all things known unto the world concerning the matter.

—D&C 10꞉37

Bennett's Motives

Bennett's first meeting with Joseph Smith predated Nauvoo. While all were living in Ohio, Bennett travelled with William McLellin to see Joseph in January 1832. Joseph seems to have made little impact on Bennett personally, though the visit would be remembered later. Interestingly, Bennett instead became friends with Eber D. Howe, who was to print Mormonism Unvailed, one of the first anti-Mormon works. Howe also printed the diplomas peddled by Bennett, and the doctor borrowed heavily from Howe's work when he penned his attack on Joseph and the Saints. This early familiarity with both the Saints and their enemies, coupled with Bennett's unscrupulous nature and burning need for pre-eminence and power, gives credence to his later claim that he did not arrive as a sincere convert.

"I never believed in them or their doctrines," insisted Bennett, but

the facts and reports respecting them, which I continually heard, led me to suspect, and, indeed, believe, that their leaders had formed, and were preparing to execute a daring and colossal scheme of rebellion and usurpation throughout the North-Western States of the Union… …the proceedings of the Mormons…at length determined me to make an attempt to detect and expose the moves and machinery of the plot.

Though his conversion was probably insincere, it is difficult to credit Bennett's claim that his intention was to expose Joseph as a fraud and danger to the Republic. His biographer notes that Bennett's "rationalization has properly met with derision subsequently by most historians." One such historian was H. H. Bancroft, who replied:

When a man thrusts in your face three-score certificates of his good character, each signed by from one to a dozen persons, you may know that he is a very great rascal. Nor are we disappointed here. This author is a charlatan, pure and simple; such was he when he joined the Mormons, and before and after.…if [Bennett] really does not know better than this why he wrote his book, perhaps he will excuse me for telling him that it was, first, for notoriety; second, for money; and third, in order to make people think him a better and greater man than he is.

Following the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum, Bennett returned to Illinois (after two years of anti-Mormon lectures) and attempted to influence the succession in favor of Sidney Rigdon, even providing a supposed revelation from Joseph endorsing Rigdon. He later threw his support behind Jesse James Strang, who made Bennett co-adjudicator of his break-off group, only to excommunicate him in 1847. These are not the acts of a whistle-blower, but of someone seeking to use religion for temporal power. As quartermaster general, Bennett also arranged the transfer of ammunition and light cannon for the Mormon militia—a reckless act if he truly believed the Mormons were plotting sedition. It is far more likely that Bennett recognized that the Mormons were "an untapped political potential in Illinois," which "he could exploit…for his own gain. He likely believed from the onset [sic] that Smith was a charlatan and Mormonism a fraud. Neither of these circumstances would have particularly mattered to him," since he had repeatedly resorted to lies and misrepresentation for his own aggrandizement (see ).

Was Bennett, then, ever sincere? An assessment of his lifelong behavior and character would probably lead most to reject this possibility—but, LDS authors have often entertained it because of a revelation addressed to Bennett. Bennett and others have read this as an endorsement of his behavior to that point, and critics have seen it as evidence that Joseph was both uninspired and unaware of Bennett's nature and actions. B.H. Roberts believed that "his intentions in life at that time were honorable," and argued that "the Lord" shared this view in D&C 124.

A close reading of both the text and the historical circumstances calls this assumption into question:

Again, let my servant John C. Bennett help you in your labor in sending my word to the kings and people of the earth, and stand by you, even you my servant Joseph Smith, in the hour of affliction; and his reward shall not fail if he receive counsel.

"And for his love he shall be great, for he shall be mine if he do this, saith the Lord. I have seen the work which he hath done, which I accept if he continue, and will crown him with blessings and great glory. (D&C 124꞉16–17)

The praise for Bennett is, in fact, rather mild. In the same section, the Lord is "well pleased," (v. 1, 12) with others, who are described as "blessed" (v. 15), "holy" (v. 19), "without guile" (v. 20), and praised for "integrity of…heart." No such language is applied to Bennett.

Bennett is instructed to support Joseph in difficulty and receive counsel (rather than give it, as is his wont) if he wishes a reward. Bennett is told he "will be" the Lord's because of his love if he obeys—he is offered a transformation of his nature, if he will accept it. The Lord promised to accept his work "if he continue" (v. 20, emphasis added). What work had Bennett performed?

The Nauvoo Charter

A bill for the Nauvoo charter was submitted to the Illinois legislature on 28 November 1840. By 16 December, the charter was approved, and "[b]oth Mormon and non-Mormon sources give Bennett much credit for the passage of the Charter." Section 124 thus approves Bennett's political work on behalf of the Saints and offers provisional blessings—it says nothing of Bennett's current state before God. The same can be said of the patriarchal blessing given by Hyrum Smith to Bennett on 21 September 1840, which three times makes its promises contingent on faithfulness. It also notes that Bennett may "step aside from the path of rectitude…because of temptation," and promises that God will "call after" him in such a case while cautioning against turning "aside from the truth for the popularity of the world." Such a warning was well-placed, and Bennett did not heed it. Prestige and power were always his over-riding goals.

Even the First Presidency's message about Bennett, printed four days before the receipt of the D&C 124 revelation, said nothing about Bennett's moral character or spiritual gifts. He was described as one who had helped protect them from persecution by securing passage of the Nauvoo charter, and as simply "a man of enterprise, extensive acquirements, and of independent mind, and is calculated to be a great blessing to our community." Bennett had helped already, and had great potential, but the praise was all secular—not spiritual.

Source and degree of Bennett's prominence

According to William Law, Bennett "was more in the secret confidence of Joseph than perhaps any other man in the city." How did a newcomer become mayor, a member of the First Presidency, and a military leader so quickly?

The founding of Nauvoo placed even greater administrative burdens upon Joseph.

In June 1840, he asked the high council to appoint someone else to attend to "the temporalities of the Church."…Joseph wanted to free himself for 'the spiritualities'—translation and revelation—but his appeal went unheeded. The high council supplied another clerk, leaving Joseph responsible…He oversaw the business [of the Church] for another year, until the Twelve Apostles returned…

Not only were Joseph's needs greater than ever, he had lost many of those on whom he had relied in the past. The Twelve were away on missions. Joseph Smith, Sr., died in September 1840, and Joseph had often had to use whatever talent was available to him. Bennett's organization skills, military background, political acumen, and restless energy made him useful.

Sidney Rigdon, a counsellor in the First Presidency, was frequently ill. On April 8, "John C. Bennett was presented, with the First Presidency, as Assistant President until President Rigdon's health should be restored." Modern readers should be cautious in projecting the role of the current First Presidency on Joseph's day. In the modern Church, the First Presidency is almost always composed of two apostles called to serve with the President, and have extensive experience in ecclesiastical affairs. In Joseph's day, this was not the case. Most of Joseph's counsellors in the First Presidency were to betray his trust, including Jesse Gause, Frederick G. Williams, Sidney Rigdon, William Law and John C. Bennett. While some of these counsellors received keys, Bennett did not.

Bennett often acted as Joseph's proxy in political and secular matters, and "appears to have officiated at few public religious activities. He occasionally preached, and as mayor of Nauvoo he performed a few marriage ceremonies," though given Joseph's introduction of sealing ordinances, this is more a secular than religious function. With few exceptions, Bennett "played little role in church conferences. There might have been an unofficial division of labor between Bennett and Smith. Smith handled church affairs; Bennett took the lead in secular matters." In Bennett, Joseph had found the secular aide-de-camp he sought in vain from the high council.

Bennett: an outside "insider"

Following his break with Joseph, Bennett made much of his insider status. He claimed that his role in the First Presidency "gave me access to all their secret lodges and societies, and enabled me to become perfectly familiar with the doings and designs of the whole Church." It is difficult to know whether Bennett was lying or mistaken. Despite his claim, he was never part of the inner circle which received the highest temple ordinances introduced by Joseph. Bennett and Rigdon "were conspicuously absent" when Joseph Smith spoke to those who would be among the first to receive the full endowment necessary "to finish their work and prevent imposition" by Satan.

"Thus," wrote one author

the considerable embarrassment to Joseph Smith and Mormonism which some have inferred from Bennett's alleged duping of the Mormons is cast in a new light because Bennett himself so effectively refutes his own claim that he was a close confidant of Joseph Smith. Unwittingly, Bennett indisputably demonstrates that he was neither directly involved with the endowment, eternal marriage, nor plural marriage—the most significant private theological developments during Bennett's stay in Nauvoo.

Storm Clouds

Bennett's past followed close on his heels. Joseph received a letter reporting Bennett's abandonment of wife and children soon after announcing his baptism. Joseph knew from personal experience that "it is no uncommon thing for good men to be evil spoken against," and did nothing precipitous. The accusations against Bennett gained credence when Joseph learned of his attempts to persuade a young woman "that he intended to marry her." Joseph dispatched Hyrum Smith and William Law to make inquiries, and in early July 1841 he learned that Bennett had a wife and children living in the east. Non-LDS sources confirmed Bennett's infidelity: one noted that he "heard it from almost every person in town that [his wife] left him in consequence of his ill treatment of her home and his intimacy with other women." Another source reported that Bennett's wife "declared that she could no longer live with him…it would be the seventh family that he had parted during their union."

When confronted with these charges, Bennett broke down and confessed. Emma's nephew, Lorenzo D. Wasson, claimed to have been upstairs and heard Joseph "give J. C. Bennett a tremendous flagellation for practicing iniquity under the base pretence of authority from the heads of the church." Claiming to be mortified at the idea of public censure, Bennett took poison in a suicide gesture, but recovered. As a physician, Bennett probably knew how to dose himself to avoid serious harm. Such a flamboyant play for sympathy is consistent with his sociopathy; it is likely that his regret was feigned, save for the risk of public exposure.

Joseph, always quick to forgive the penitent, agreed to keep Bennett's past crimes a secret. Almost a year later, at the end of May 1842, Chauncey Higbee was brought before the high council and excommunicated for "unchaste and unvirtuous conduct towards certain females, and for teaching it was right, if kept secret." This was a replay of Bennett's tactics, and four women testified to the high council that Higbee had thus seduced them, and two named Bennett as the source of the doctrine. This, coupled with reports that Bennett was continuing to seduce women, moved the leaders to action.

After learning of Bennett's persistent seductions, on May 17, Joseph instructed the Church recorder to "be so good as to permit Bennett to withdraw his name from the Church record, if he desires to do so, and this with the best of feelings towards you and General Bennett." Hyrum Smith reported that several women confessed to submitting to Bennett's proposal, and that he also promised

he would give them medicine to produce abortions, provided they should become pregnant. One of these witnesses, a married woman that he attended upon in his professional capacity whilst she was sick, stated that he made proposals to her of a similar nature; he told her that he wished her husband was dead, and that if he was dead, he would marry her and clear out with her; he also begged her permission to give him [her husband] medicine to that effect; he did try to give him medicine, but he would not take it.

Bennett was forced to resign as mayor, and swore an affidavit stating that the doctrines he had taught were his own, and not from Joseph Smith. The entire city council later testified that Bennett was not under any duress when he made these statements. Needing to rehabilitate his reputation for his anti-Mormon book, Bennett later claimed that Joseph took him into a private room, "locked the door," "DREW A PISTOL ON ME," and told him that if he did not "exonerat[e]…me from all participation whatever, either directly or indirectly, in word or deed, in the SPIRITUAL WIFE DOCTRINE, private intercourse with females in general; and if you do not do it with apparent cheerfulness, I will make CAT-FISH BAIT of you, or delivery you over to the Danites for execution to-night…'If you tell that publicly,' said he, 'death is your portion; remember the Danites!'"

This story is utterly implausible. In addition to the city council's testimony, the non-LDS alderman before whom Bennett swore his oath said that

[t]he door of the room was open and free for all or any person to pass or repass…[Bennett then] said, "you know it will be better for me not to be bothered with Mayor's office, Legion, Mormon, or any thing else." During all this time if he was under duress, or fear, he must have had a good faculty for concealing it, for he was at liberty to go and come when and where he pleased... I know that I saw him in different parts of the city, even after he had made these statements, transacting business as usual.

Bennett, like many anti-Mormon imitators after him, would repeatedly claim that his truth telling put his life at grave risk from the "Danite" assassins, who "pledge themselves to poison the wells and the food and drink of dissenters, apostates, and all enemies of Zion, and to murder…[and] to destroy by fire and sword all the enemies of Mormonism." Bennett's subsequent actions belie his worry—he was to remain openly in Nauvoo for another five weeks, and during his two years of extensive anti-Mormon lecturing and publishing, he was never threatened by Danites. He even returned to Nauvoo a week after "escaping"—hardly a sign of fear. It seems far more likely that Bennett was not yet ready to burn all his bridges with Joseph Smith, and was willing to express contrition in private if it did not threaten his public influence.

Fall of Bennett

Such a threat was not long in coming. With the conclusion of Chauncey Higbee's trial, Bennett was told that his withdrawal from the Church would be made public. Bennett once more begged for mercy, claiming that public exposure would distress his mother. A public announcement was again deferred, and Bennett would soon also make confession to the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge. Weeping, Bennett pleaded for leniency, with Joseph as his advocate. Even Joseph's patience had an end, however. It soon became clear that still other members had used Bennett's arguments to seduce women—Bennett's excommunication was publicized on 15 June. The Masonic Lodge published Bennett's crimes the next day. His Nauvoo reputation in tatters, Bennett left and began plotting his revenge.

Sarah Pratt

Bennett was not long in attempting to turn the tables on Joseph Smith. Though Bennett never denied his own adulteries, he simply made Joseph out to be worse. In letters published in the Sangamo Journal, Bennett charged Joseph with "spiritual wifery," and the seduction of Mormon women. Even those married to Joseph's closest followers were not safe, according to Bennett, and Sarah Pratt was his Exhibit A.

Historian Richard Van Wagoner goes to great lengths to exonerate Sarah Pratt in his biographical article on her, his book on plural marriage which reprints much of the article word-for-word, and his more shrill biography of Sidney Rigdon. I believe his efforts are unpersuasive.

An attempted seduction?

Bennett claimed that while Orson Pratt was on a mission with the Twelve in England, Joseph propositioned Sarah. Bennett's account is larded with difficulties. He claimed that Joseph confided his desire for Sarah as a spiritual wife, and his plans to make her one of the "Cloistered Saints." This is a term unique to Bennett, attested in no other source. Bennett insisted that there were "three…orders, or degrees" of women in the "Mormon seraglio." Using terminology that is almost certainly fabricated, Bennett reported that "[t]he first and lowest of these is styled the 'Cyprian Saints;' the second, the 'Chambered Sisters of Charity;' and the third and highest degree is called the 'Cloistered Saints,' or 'Consecratees of the Cloister.'" That Joseph would establish an "Cyprian" (i.e., wanton or prostitute) order by name is absurd. Bennett here betrays both his ignorance of Joseph's actual plural marriage teachings and his utter disregard for the truth.

Bennett claimed that he "apprised [Sarah] of Joe's contemplated attack on her virtue," with a warning that Joseph would destroy her reputation if she revealed him. Bennett has Joseph professing his "earnest desire of connubial bliss," but here again, his account does not match more reliable reports. Joseph's offers of plural marriage were not couched in romantic, wooing terminology. Bennett and his readers could likely not conceive of a motivation for plural marriage apart from sexual desire, and so he cast Joseph in that mold.

Upon receiving Sarah's rejection, Bennett's Joseph then required a lamb to be sacrificed, "and the door-posts and the gate sprinkled with its blood, and the kidneys and entrails taken and offered upon an altar of twelve stones that had not been touched with a hammer, as a burn sin offering." Such pseudo-Mosaic ritual is without precedent in Joseph's theology. In his original letter, Bennett went on: "So I procured the lamb from Capt. John T. Barnett, and it was slain by Lieut. Stephen H. Goddard, and I [Bennett] offered kidneys and entrails in sacrifice for Joe as desired." This portion was not reprinted when his letter was included in his anti-Mormon book; even he must have realized that his fabrication was over-the-top.

Having been once rejected, after Orson's return Bennett claimed that Joseph later "stealthily approach[ed] and kiss[ed] her," bringing the whole story into the open. Though there is no other source for this claim, there is some suggestion that Orson knew about Bennett's charges before they were published. Bennett published a 5 July letter from Orson's brother-in-law, who claimed that "Mr. Pratt would write, but he is afraid to. He wishes to be perfectly still, until your second letter comes out—then you may hear." Some have concluded that Orson was thus only awaiting Bennett's public charge against Sarah on 15 July to act. This is possible, but I am not persuaded: Bennett is not above forging a letter, and even if genuine his correspondent may not speak for Orson.

Orson's Initial Reaction

The strongest argument against Orson's foreknowledge is his reaction on the day of publication. Joseph arranged a search party after a suicidal note from Orson was found. As Ebenezer Robinson later recalled:

I remember well the excitement which existed at the time as a large number of the citizens turned out to go in search for [Orson Pratt]. …Under these circumstances his mind temporarily gave way, and he wandered away, no one knew where…[the searchers] fearing lest he had committed suicide. He was found some 5 miles below Nauvoo, sitting on a rock, on the bank of the Mississippi river, without a hat.

It remains an open question whether Orson was taken aback by Bennett's charges, or conflicted by second thoughts over his previous decision to support his wife and Bennett over the man he regarded as God's prophet. "Br Orson Pratt is in trubble in consequence of his wife," wrote Brigham Young to Parley Pratt two days later. "His feelings are so rought up that he dos not know whether his wife is wrong, or whether Josephs testimony and others are wrong and due Ly [do lie] and he decived for 12 years—or not." Young sympathized with Pratt's plight: "He is all but crazy about matters," but left no doubts about who he held responsible: "You may aske what the matter is concirning Sister P.—it is enoph, and doct, J.C. Bennett could tell all about himself & hir—enoph of that—we will not let Br. Orson goe away from us he is to[o] good a man to have a woman destroy him."

Whatever his misgivings or surprise, Pratt seems to have overcome them within the week. On July 22, he refused to vote in favor of a public resolution attesting to Joseph Smith's good character. Joseph deftly pointed out that Pratt's disenchantment was based on second-hand testimony: "Have you personally a knowledge of any immoral act in me toward the female sex, or in any other way?" Admitted Orson, "Personally, toward the female sex, I have not." Wilford Woodruff reported how the apostles worked for "four days with Elder Orson Pratt…to get him to recall his sayings against Joseph & The Twelve but he persisted in his wicked course & would not recall any of his sayings which were made in public against Joseph & others sayings which were unjust & untrue… Dr John Cook Bennet was the ruin of Orson Pratt." Pratt was excommunicated on 20 August.

Alleged Adultery of John C. Bennett and Sarah Pratt

Joseph would not let Bennett's version stand unchallenged. Bennett was repeatedly attacked from the pulpit and in print. ‘‘The Wasp’’, edited by Joseph's pugnacious brother William, accused Bennett of "adultery, fornication, embryo infanticide and buggery." On July 27, an extra of ‘‘The Wasp’’ published affidavits rebutting Bennett.

Goddard evidence

Chief among the Saints' countercharges was that Sarah Pratt had committed adultery with Bennett. Stephen Goddard, with whom Sarah had boarded in the fall/winter of 1840, swore that beginning Oct 6, 1840

from the first night, until the last, with the exception of one night, it being nearly a month, the Dr. was there as sure as the night came, and generally two or three times a day…what their conversation was I could not tell, as they sat close together, he leaning on her ... whispering continually or talking very low… One night they took their chairs out of doors and remained there as we supposed until 12 o'clock or after; at another time they went over to the house where you now live and come back after dark, or about that time. We went over several times late in the evening while she lived in the house of Dr. Foster, and were most sure to find Dr. Bennett and your wife together, as it were, man and wife. Two or three times we found little Orson lying on the floor and the bed apparently reserved for the Dr. and herself …

Goddard's wife Zeruiah confirmed his story, and added

Dr. Bennett came to my house one night about 12 o'clock, and sat on or beside the bed where Mrs. Pratt was and cursed and swore very profanely at her; she told me next day that the Dr. was quick tempered and was mad at her, but I have no other reason. I concluded from circumstances that she had promised to meet him somewhere and had disappointed him; on another night I remonstrated with the Dr. and asked him what Orson Pratt would think, if he could know that you were so fond of his wife, and holding her hand so much; the Dr. replied that he could pull the wool over Orson's eyes.

Mrs. Pratt stated to me that Dr. Bennett told her, that he could cause abortion with perfect safety to the mother, at any stage of pregnancy, and that he had frequently destroyed and removed infants before their time to prevent exposure of the parties, and that he had instruments for that purpose &c.

My husband and I were frequently at Mrs. Pratt's and stayed till after 10 o'clock in the night, and Dr. Bennett still remained there with her and her little child alone at that late hour.

On one occasion I came suddenly into the room where Mrs. Pratt and the Dr. were: she was lying on the bed and the Dr. was taking his hands out of her bosom; he was in the habit of sitting on the bed where Mrs. Pratt was lying and lying down over her.

I would further state that from my own observation, I am satisfied that their conduct was anything but virtuous, and I know Mrs. Pratt is not a woman of truth….

The Goddards provide particularly damning testimony, and Van Wagoner goes to some lengths to dispose of it:

The Goddard story had serious problems that even Sarah did not point out. Bennett had been appointed 4 October 1840 to work with Smith on drafting the Nauvoo Charter. On this same day he was also selected as a delegate to lobby for passage of the bill through the state legislature at Springfield, nearly one hundred miles distant. That Bennett could draft the complicated documents, make the necessary trips to Springfield, and be with Sarah Pratt every night except one during a one-month period seems improbable.

Other authors have accepted Van Wagoner's analysis with little comment. Unfortunately, this reading is seriously flawed. A closer look at the timeline reveals that Bennett did not leave Nauvoo for Springfield until late November. Bennett was able to present an outline of the charter during the afternoon session of the conference at which he was appointed to write it, leading one historian to conclude that "Smith and Bennett had already been at work on the charter and probably had it completed before the conference met." There was thus likely little complex paperwork to prepare, and Bennett could easily have done any remaining work while at Nauvoo for almost two months. These two errors weaken Van Wagoner's analysis irreparably, and raise the plausibility of the Goddards' accounts, since their timeframe of "about a month" fits neatly between Bennett's arrival in Nauvoo and his departure to lobby for the charter's passage. It also matches a later claim made by Joseph in passing which dated Bennett's first immoralities to October 1840.

Van Wagoner makes a stronger point when he argues that

it seems likely that had Bennett and Sarah been involved in a sexual liaison as public as the Goddard story implies, objections would have been raised when Smith called him to be "assistant president" six months later. Furthermore, despite the numerous cases of church action against sexual sins brought before the Nauvoo High Council, Sarah Pratt's name is never mentioned.

One should not over-read the public nature of the reported behavior. The Goddards were purportedly aware because Sarah was boarding with them—this does not necessarily mean that Bennett was making a public spectacle of his affair. Van Wagoner's analysis presumes that any affair between Sarah and Bennett was handled by the high council. We have already seen evidence that Joseph dealt with the initial reports of Bennett's infidelities privately, without high council involvement.

In a more speculative vein, if this was true of the case involving Sarah's adultery, he may well have regarded the issue as closed—one wonders what role the Goddards may have played in first alerting Joseph to Bennett's true nature. (In this case, perhaps Sarah's role was kept quiet because she promised to reform, and because Joseph wished to spare Orson Pratt pain and embarrassment. When Bennett began accusing Joseph, however, the Goddards may have been given leave to reveal what they knew.)

When the Bennett imbroglio blew up a year later, Joseph may have been reluctant to publicly try Sarah—if he had proposed a plural marriage to her, the revelations that a hostile adulteress could make would be disastrous. (See discussion below on whether Joseph tried to marry Sarah.) Joseph doubtless had vivid memories of Oliver Cowdery's excommunication, and the unwanted disclosures about the Fanny Alger marriage that resulted.

The Goddards are not alone in their witness against Bennett and Sarah. Robert D. Foster claimed that "Mrs. White, Mrs. [Orson] Pratt, Niemans, Miller, Brotherton, and others," could confirm the claim that Bennett was a seducer, though the source of his information is not clear.

Another non-Mormon witness

A non-Mormon witness, Jacob B. Backenstos, testified that "some time during [the] winter" of 1841–1842, "he accused Doctor John C. Bennett, with having an illicit intercourse with Mrs. Orson Pratt, and some others, when said Bennett replied that she made a first rate go." Backenstos insisted that "from personal observations I should have taken said Doctor Bennett and Mrs. Pratt as man and wife, had I not known to the contrary."

Van Wagoner's attempt to diffuse Backenstos' testimony is unimpressive. He argues that because Sarah was ill and pregnant, and because Orson was back in Nauvoo by that time, "Mormon Backenstos's statement may thus be dismissed as slander." (Backenstos was not, in fact, a Mormon—Van Wagoner corrects the statement in his later book, but his initial intent seems to be to impeach Backenstos on religious grounds. ) His error highlights a problem with his "slander" claim—Backenstos was, unlike the Goddards, a non-Mormon. He had no religious reason to defend Joseph Smith, or to accuse Bennett unfairly. Van Wagoner's effort to brush this claim away is disingenuous. Would he have us believe that no woman has carried on an affair while her husband is in the same city? Does pregnancy preclude adultery? Given that Bennett was often accused of promising abortions if his liaisons resulted in pregnancy, would not this give the lovers less reason to worry about discovery?

Backinstos' witness is credible on a number of fronts—if he was fabricating a tale, why be so vague as to the exact time? And, he carefully distinguishes between what he has been told by others, and what he has observed himself. Most importantly, perhaps, neither Bennett or Sarah challenged Backinstos' witness. If he was truly guilty of slander, why did they say or do nothing, especially when Bennett was to publish a 300 page book justifying himself and condemning his enemies?

Bennett likewise said little about the Goddard accusations, though he mentions both individuals: Stephen is named as a witnesses to Joseph's demand for a sheep (he would claim that he did slaughter a sheep for supper, but denied any religious meaning), while Zeruiah supposedly heard Sarah Pratt declare that Joseph was "a corrupt man."

Sarah's belated defense

Sarah said nothing to defend herself until decades later. Having left the Church, she gave an interview to anti-Mormon author William Wyl, and claimed that she approached Zeruiah about her testimony as soon as it appeared.

"She began to sob," [claimed Sarah,] "'It is not my fault,' said she; 'Hyrum Smith came to our house, with the affidavits all written out, and forced us to sign them. 'Joseph and the church must be saved,' said he. We saw that resistance was useless, they would have ruined us; so we signed the papers."

While such a tale fits the anti-Mormon trope of powerful Church leaders and members who are willing dupes or pawns, it is not terribly persuasive. Why was this matter not raised during the cross-fire of charge and counter-charge at Nauvoo? Even if Sarah did not wish to speak, why did Bennett not publicize this further evidence of Mormon perfidy, instead of leaving the Goddard charges unmentioned? Why did Sarah wait so long to make her accusation, speaking only when the Goddards (long residents of Utah) were safely dead?

Sarah's version is even undercut by an anti-Mormon work. Mary Ettie V. Smith claimed that

Sarah, occupied a house owned by John C. Bennett…Sarah was an educated woman, of fine accomplishments, and attracted the attention of the Prophet Joseph, who called upon her one day, and alleged he found John C. Bennett in bed with her. As we lived but across the street from her house we saw and heard the whole uproar. Sarah ordered the Prophet out of the house, and the Prophet used obscene language to her.

Mary's book has many problems, but she elsewhere showed no reluctance in condemning Joseph as a libertine and atheist. Why pass up a perfect opportunity to condemn Joseph, if the Bennett/Sarah version is the truth? We have already seen how Joseph reportedly "flagellated" Bennett for his adulteries; a violent verbal reaction from the Prophet in this instance would be in character if he discovered Sarah in sin, and it is not surprising that Joseph's rebuke would be far more public than their secret tryst. It would also be unlikely for Joseph to create a scene if he was a jilted lover, but understandable if he is railing against vice.

Orson Pratt's change of heart

The most persuasive argument against Sarah and Bennett's version—and in favor of the account offered by Joseph's supporters, Mormon and non-Mormon—is Orson Pratt. Pratt would not let threats to his ecclesiastical office or his membership deter him from supporting his wife. Excommunicated, he remained in Nauvoo. He had made these sacrifices for his convictions; only an equally powerful change in those convictions would have made him reconsider.

In time his view of the matter changed. When he received a letter from John C. Bennett trying to enlist him in a plot to return Joseph to Missouri, Pratt handed the letter to Joseph. Orson was later to say that he got his information about Joseph and Sarah from "a wicked source, from those disaffected, but as soon as he learned the truth he was satisfied." He and Sarah were rebaptized on either the 19th or 20 January 1843. Joseph recommended that Orson divorce Sarah and remarry another—more evidence that Joseph was genuinely concerned about Sarah's behaviour, and was not slandering Sarah to force the Pratts' support. Otherwise, why risk angering Sarah further by encouraging a divorce, now that she was back in the Church?

Sarah later claimed that her belief never recovered from this period. Her later behaviour demonstrates that she had a talent for duplicity. Sarah soon betrayed Orson in another way, and hid her actions from everyone:

During Orson's 1852 mission…Sarah began to turn her children against Mormonism. She concealed her actions from neighbors, Church authorities, and her absent husband…

"I had not only to prevent my children from becoming Mormons, I had to see to it that they should not become imbued with such an early prejudice as would cause them to betray to the neighbors my teachings and intentions." She further explained to the reporter how she accomplished this:

"Many a night, when my children were young and also when they had grown up so as to be companions to me, I have closed this very room where we are sitting, locked the door, pulled down the window curtains, put out all but one candle on the table, gathered my boys close around my chair and talked to them in whispers for fear that what I said would be overheard."

Such actions may be understandable, and a modern reader repulsed by plural marriage may even be in sympathy with them. They demonstrate, however, that Sarah's post-Nauvoo years were filled with duplicity, by her own admission—while Orson was away preaching, Sarah undermined the faith of his children at home.

At the same time that she tried to impeach the Goddards' witness, Sarah also insisted that Joseph had told her "God does not care if we have a good time, if only other people do not know it." While this sounds like Bennett, it is inconceivable that Joseph would take this stance. Sarah elsewhere claimed that Bennett was the source of Joseph's revelation on plural marriage, and that Joseph had "many more" than eighty wives, regarding himself "the Christ of this dispensation." She also insisted that William Clayton was "a brute and a drunkard," while Brigham Young was "the most bloodthirsty of men." Such transparent exaggeration and fabrication make her—or at least the version presented by Wyl—a witness to be used with extreme caution.

Conclusion

On one hand, we have Bennett—a serial adulterer, sociopath, and witness who perjured himself repeatedly, even over trivial matters—and Sarah Pratt, who waited until her accusers were safely dead before presenting any evidence in her own defense. Sarah also admitted to repeated deceptions of her husband and neighbors, and perjured herself repeatedly in Wyl's work.

Ranged against Bennett and Sarah are the wronged husband, and multiple Mormon and non-Mormon witnesses (including a hostile anti-Mormon source) who were not challenged contemporaneously, and whose accounts match the available timeline.

I think it probable, then, that Bennett and Sarah were engaged in an illicit affair. When Joseph learned of it, he was incensed and worried. Given that he entered plural marriage with the wives of other apostles, and was also sealed to some women whose husbands were not faithful Church members (see ), it is possible that he did offer Sarah a plural relationship. I suspect that he did. The tenor and circumstances of that offer, however, have doubtless been distorted beyond all recognition by Bennett and Sarah. Given Joseph's apparent belief that the sealing power could both bind him to faithful members and possibly help save the less valiant, he may have hoped to link himself more tightly to Orson and help redeem Sarah from her folly. If so, he succeeded in his first goal, but failed in the second.

Nancy Rigdon

Matters remained relatively quiet until the following spring, though from then onward "Bennett's influence in official matters steadily diminished." With Bennett's help, a Masonic Lodge was established in Nauvoo in October 1841, and new members were inducted beginning March 15, 1842. In November 1841, the city council approved the destruction of a Nauvoo brothel, perhaps provoked by Francis Higbee's escapades. Joseph continued to privately teach and enter into plural marriages throughout the winter and spring. Bennett would later accuse Joseph of attempting to seduce Nancy Rigdon on April 9, 1842.

Bennett's Version

In Bennett's version, Joseph offered Bennett "five hundred dollars or the best lot on Main Street," if he would "assist me in procuring Nancy as one of my spiritual wives." Bennett, never shy of self-aggrandizement, replied nobly that "I cannot agree to it. Elder Rigdon is one of my best friends, and his family are now pure and spotless, and it would be a great pity to approach the truly virtuous."

Bennett went on to claim that Joseph had Nancy brought to the printing-office by Mrs. Orson Hyde. Joseph was reportedly unable to see her, and told her to call the next day. It is at this point that Bennett's scheme becomes clear, since he reports that Nancy "communicated the matter to Colonel Francis M. Higbee, who was addressing her, and asked his advice as to the second visit." Francis Higbee was Nancy's boyfriend, as well as Bennett's secret protégé in the seduction of women.

Bennett, ever anxious to present himself the hero, implored Joseph not to touch the daughter of a fellow Mason, but the comic-book Joseph of Bennett's fictions refused to listen. Bennett then claimed that he returned to Higbee, "and told him Joe's designs, and requested him to go immediately and see Miss Rigdon, and tell her the infernal plot…but advise her to go and see for herself what Joe would do."

Bennett insisted that Joseph took Nancy "into a private room…and LOCKED THE DOOR." Bennett's version had Joseph tell Nancy she would join the fictitious "Chambered Sisters of Charity," or "Cloistered Saints," promised her she could marry another besides him, and tried to kiss her. Nancy bravely threatened to scream, and was released with the promise that Sister Hyde would explain matters to her more fully. A few days later, Joseph sent his secretary, Willard Richards, with a letter to Nancy, which Bennett reproduced after having it "handed me by Colonel F.M. Higbee."

We can easily dismiss a great deal of this narrative. The idea that Joseph would offer Bennett money for his aid is ridiculous; it is more absurd that Bennett would turn him down if the offer was made. Bennett's concern for purity and virtue is pure fiction, as is his talk of the Chambered Sisters and Cloistered Saints (see  (needs URL / links)). The claim that Joseph used romantic gestures—declaring her the "the idol of his affections," or trying to kiss her—matches little of the more reliable testimony.

More interesting is the apostate Sarah Pratt's later testimony that she "knew Nancy intimately and says that she was a very good, virtuous girl, and that Bennett's tale is true in all essential points." How does Sarah know this? She is nowhere described as being present for these events. In the same late-life reminiscences, Sarah attacked Bennett as "full of low cunning and licentiousness," and Wyl elsewhere observes that "Mrs. Sarah M. Pratt has given us a portrait of him [Bennett], which shows conclusively that one can be a great man in the world while he would be a very little one in the penitentiary." Yet, she assures us that Bennett's account of an event for which she was not present is accurate.

The intrigue thickens, for in Bennett's work, he portrayed himself as the friend and defender of Mrs. Pratt, willing to risk Joseph's wrath to warn her privately of the prophet's plans for seduction. Bennett went so far to claim that Joseph had told him to have some bogus plates manufactured that he could display as the Book of Mormon record. Bennett insisted that he then "mentioned this proposition to Mrs. Sarah M. Pratt, on the day the Prophet made it, and requested her to keep it in memory, as it might be of much importance." Bennett's report of Joseph's designs on her virtue gave the noble Mrs. Pratt the chance to remind him—and the reader—how "I remember well when you told me of his desiring you to procure the engraving of new plates of the Book of Mormon, for the further and more perfect blinding of the people." This is as unlikely as it is heavy-handed.

In 1842, Bennett seemed confident of Sarah's support for his version, and praises her extravagantly as "one of the most elegant, graceful, amiable, and accomplished women in the place" and claims he "had influence with her." By 1886, Sarah had nothing but contempt for Bennett, but still assured us that his version is utterly reliable when it attacks Joseph Smith.

This dynamic strengthens the case for Sarah and Bennett's adultery. In 1842, Bennett had high hopes that Sidney Rigdon and Orson Pratt (whom he also fawned on in print) would support him and Sarah in their attack on Joseph. By 1886, Sarah knew too well that Bennett had used and betrayed her too—their adultery likely alienated Orson, who chose to believe Joseph over her, and ultimately embraced plural marriage. Because of Bennett, Sarah lost her husband, her faith, and her respectability among the Saints.

Calm Before the Storm

Though much of Bennett's account is fabricated, virtually all historians have accepted that the letter attributed to Joseph by Bennett is legitimate, though the only source for the text is Bennett's anti-Mormon works (the letter's contents are discussed in  (needs URL / links)). We know little about what was going on between Nancy's receipt of the letter, dated between April 10–15, and the end of the month. That Joseph was troubled by the visit with Nancy, however, is suggested by his sermon the next day: "[I preached in the grove, and pronounced a curse] upon all adulterers and Fornicators, and unvirtuous persons and those who have made use of my name to carry on their iniquitous designs."

The prophet's remarks to the Relief Society on April 28 suggest that his concerns grew ever more acute. Joseph

did not know as he should have many opportunities of teaching them—that they were going to be left to themselves—they would not long have him to instruct them—that the church would not have his instruction long, and the world would not be troubled with him a great while, and would not have his teachings. He spoke of delivering the keys to [both] this society and to the Church—that according to his prayers God had appointed him elsewhere.

He exhorted the sisters always to concentrate their faith and prayers for, and place confidence in those whom God has appointed to honor, whom God has plac'd at the head to lead—that we should arm them with our prayers—that the keys of the kingdom are about to be given to them, that they may be able to detect every thing false—as well as to the Elders…

He said if one member become corrupt and you know it; you must immediately put it away. The sympathies of the heads of the church have induc'd them to bear with those that were corrupt in consequence of which all become contaminated—you must put down iniquity and by your good example provoke the Elders to good works….

Joseph was clearly tired, and we see one of many intimations of his early death. His preoccupations are clear, however: he and other leaders have allowed their "sympathies…to bear with those that were corrupt." To his dismay, Joseph now feared that the actions of these few could corrupt the entire Church. While urging the sisters to encourage virtue, Joseph also tried to forestall a witch-hunt based on rumour: "Let your labors be confined mostly to those around you to your own circle, as far as knowledge is concerned, it may extend to all the world, but your administrations, should be confin'd to the circle of your immediate acquaintances and more especially to the members of the society." The last thing Joseph wanted was over-zealous Relief Society members accusing others (including him) of impropriety based on rumor or insufficient information, but he also wanted to protect them from the predations of Bennett and his clique.

As we saw in the earlier ( (needs URL / links)), Bennett's repeated seductions were proven after women appeared before the high council and testified against him and Chauncey Higbee in 1842. Yet, the first of these witnesses appeared on May 20; three days earlier, Joseph had told his secretary to allow Bennett to withdraw from the Church if he would do so, and Joseph began having leaders sign a letter withdrawing fellowship from Bennett nine days earlier. It is therefore inescapable that Joseph was already worried about Bennett, and likely others, by at least sometime in April. Otherwise, he would not have spoken as he did to the Relief Society, or prepared to ease Bennett out even before Chauncey Higbee's sins came to light at the end of May.

Willard Richards certainly believed that Bennett was the cause of Joseph's trouble. Richards acted as Joseph's scribe, and kept his journal. The day after the address to the Relief Society, Richards wrote in Joseph's journal that there "was made manifest a conspiracy against the peace of this househould." As Dean Jesse notes, the initials "'J.C.B.' written lightly in the margin by Willard Richards no doubt refers to John C. Bennett." When Richards expanded Joseph's journal for the History of the Church, he wrote that "it gave me some trouble to counteract the design of certain base individuals, and restore peace. The Lord makes manifest to me many things, which it not wisdom for me to make public, until others can witness the proof of them." By late April, Bennett was definitely causing problems, and Joseph had concerns about some other members' behaviour.

Francis Higbee was likely a prominent cause of those concerns. Joseph's later testimony reported that

Bennet[t] said Higbee pointed out the spot where he had seduced a girl, and that he had seduced another. I did not believe it, I felt hurt, and labored with Higbee about it; he swore with uplifted hands, that he had lied about the matter. I went and told the girl's parents, when Higbee and Bennet[t] made affidavits and both perjured themselves, they swore false about me so as to blind the family. I brought Francis M. Higbee before Brigham Young, Hyrum Smith and others; Bennet[t] was present, when they both acknowledged that they had done these things, and asked us to forgive them. I got vexed, my feelings had been hurt; Higbee has been guilty of adulterous communication, perjury…

It is not immediately clear whether this remark applies to the initial problems with Higbee and Bennett (1841, just after Brigham Young's return from England), or whether it refers to 1842. The editor's decision to omit the preceding testimony (which, we recall, possibly addressed Higbee and Bennett's homosexual crimes in 1841) makes the transition into the above paragraph abrupt.

A close look, however, makes it clear that Joseph is here describing a later problem with Higbee. "I also preferred charges against Bennett," continued Joseph,

the same charges which I am now telling: and he got up and told them it was the truth, when he pleaded for his life, and begged to be forgiven; this was his own statement before sixty or seventy men; he said the charges were true against him and Higbee. I have been endeavoring to throw out shafts to defend myself, because they were corrupt, and I knew they were determined to ruin me: he has told the public that he was determined to prosecute me, because I slandered him, although I tell nothing but the truth.

These charges were eventually confessed to sixty or seventy men—they are not the immoralities handled quietly in 1841. Instead, Joseph is here describing the confession which Bennett made before the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge on May 26, 1842. Hyrum Smith's testimony recalled "Dr. Bennett asking forgiveness of the Lodge…Francis M. Higbee acknowledged that it was the truth, that he was sorry, and had been a thousand times," with "about sixty [people] present." Heber C. Kimball described the same event in his 1844 testimony:

I think it is near two years [i.e., 1842]: I had some conversation with Francis Higbee, he expressed himself indignant at some things; he expressed himself that he was sorry, he would live a new life, he never would say a word against President Joseph Smith….

Higbee, then, was indignant about some things, and confessed himself guilty of seduction along with John C. Bennett at the Nauvoo Lodge. Joseph further noted that when he told the parents the truth, Higbee and Bennett swore false affidavits "to blind the family" of one of the girls Higbee had seduced. The pieces of the puzzle compel us to ask—was the girl Nancy Rigdon? And, if so, is such a charge justified?

The Character of Nancy Rigdon

As with Sarah Pratt, historian Richard Van Wagoner seems determined to defend and rehabilitate Nancy Rigdon while savaging Joseph Smith. For example, he claims that "orthodox Mormon sources provides evidence of the prophet's passion for women," leading Joseph to create a Nauvoo "where eros and duplicity seemed to subvert the highest moral values." Van Wagoner's Joseph was "slandering [Rigdon's] family" while Nancy's "reputation…[was] impugned by avalanche of slander." This is not the language of dispassionate analysis—the reader is cautioned not to ignore the none-too-subtle agenda at work.

Scandalous stories are not necessarily slander—one has to actually demonstrate that the statements are maliciously false. Van Wagoner fails to undertake this analysis; he cites Bennett and other apostates or enemies of the Church without comment, an apostate enemy described as "a close friend of the prophet" (291), apostate apostle William McLellin (291), Olivery Olney (298), the anti-Mormon Catherine Lewis who claims to be citing Helen Mar Kimball (294), George W. Robinson (295, 296, 298), and Bennett repeatedly (294, 298). We have already seen Van Wagoner's tendency to credit hostile sources without close analysis in his previous book on Mormon polygamy—see  (needs URL / links).</ref> and yet says nothing of the sworn testimony from 1844 which we have discussed in the previous section. It will not do to merely label such claims as slander; we must test them.

"The bedeviling paradox for many regarding the Nancy Rigdon incident," claims Van Wagoner, "is that while Smith's fame as a prophet of God makes the charges against him hard to believe, her steadfast reputation makes them difficult to dismiss." This argument fails to acknowledge, however, that it may be true that Joseph approached Nancy about being a plural wife, but this does not mean that Nancy was otherwise pure or innocent.

Van Wagoner makes much of the affidavits attesting Nancy Rigdon's purity. At best, such affidavits only prove that some believed Nancy to be chaste. Bennett, of course, managed to have multiple affairs for months without public outcry, and taught both Higbee brothers to do likewise. Affidavits attesting to Joseph Smith's "high moral character" were also produced, and yet Van Wagoner clearly sees them as mistaken.

Is it surprising, then, that Nancy's reputation might well have been unblemished, even if she was guilty? This is, after all, the point of conducting clandestine seduction—the public remains unaware. One notes too that despite Bennett's urging in the press, there was no statement from Francis Higbee affirming Nancy's innocence—strange indeed for a boyfriend not to rush to his beloved's defence.

Bennett would claim that Nancy showed Francis Higbee the letter from Joseph, and eventually to her family. Subsequent events demonstrate that, for once, Bennett was correct.

The Rigdon Family Version of Joseph's Proposal

George Robinson, Sidney's son-in-law, provided his understanding of Joseph's first interview with Nancy, during which "[Joseph claimed] he had got a REVELATION on the subject, and God had given him all the blessings of Jacob, &c., &c., and that there was no sin in it whatever; but if she had any scruples of conscience about the matter, he would marry her PRIVATELY, and enjoined her to secrecy…." Robinson claimed that Nancy "repulsed him…and she left him with disgust, and came home and told her father."

Robinson has some credibility, though he is only a second-hand witness of what Joseph told Nancy in their first private meeting. Even the hostile Nancy's version, filtered through Robinson, affirms that Joseph framed his proposal as a matter of revelation. The use of the phrase "blessings of Jacob" also resonates authentically, since Joseph saw plural marriage as a culmination of promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The "&c., &c." describing Joseph's theological justification is likely intended to be dismissive by Robinson, but it demonstrates that a good deal more was probably said, which Nancy ignored or did not understand. Joseph also mentioned marrying Nancy privately—i.e., without her parents' knowledge—which is also consistent with his proposals to other adult women. Joseph's emphasis on secrecy is likewise authentic.

How did Nancy explain matters? The only direct account from her is from 1884. This account has its problems: it was reported by RLDS elders, who were always keen to prove that plural marriage was an invention of Brigham Young, not Joseph. They reported Nancy saying, "I never heard of [polygamy] until after we came to Pittsburg [sic], and some time after." She did admit to hearing about "sealing," in 1842, but said, "I can not say that I ever understood it fully. Can not give the object." The elders then asked, "Was it a state of marriage and did it contemplate living together as husband and wife?" Nancy replied, "I never so understood it." Nancy also added that Joseph "seemed entirely different" in "the last year or two" of his life, "but I never knew or even heard that he had more than one wife."

Either Nancy or the RLDS elders were lying in 1884, or Robinson and Bennett were lying in 1842. Nancy's remarks may be technically correct: Joseph may have been offering more of a sealing than a marriage in which they would live "together as husband and wife," and Nancy rejected it because she did not appreciate the offer or theology which underlay it. Alternately, she may simply have wished not to get dragged back into the plural marriage debate, and so misled the RLDS elders, who were happy to have their beliefs confirmed.

It is difficult to know if Nancy was as insulted and dramatic as Robinson claims. It serves Bennett's purposes to portray her as outraged female innocence, and her family would have had an equal investment in believing that Nancy fearlessly defended her virtue. Their natural concern with clearing Nancy's name affects how we read other accounts from the Rigdon family. Long after her death, Nancy's son wrote "some one is wrong, BUT I KNOW MY MOTHER IS NOT. FOR SHE WAS THE PERSON MOST CONCERNED.… I would believe her, above any person living or dead.… SHE [WAS] NOT MISINFORMED OF THE CIRCUMSTANCES." His passion and certitude are clear, but would we expect a son to feel otherwise? Joseph Smith, III, had equally passionate views on Joseph Smith, Jr.'s plural marriages, because he trusted his mother. Yet, young Joseph was entirely misled.

Having decided to reject the prophet's offer—whatever its nature—Nancy herself would have wanted to appear righteously indignant for the benefit of her family and Francis Higbee. Given Joseph's concern for secrecy, however, if Nancy had left hostile and belligerent it would seem strange for him to commit his ideas to paper. If she did rebuke him as strongly as Robinson claims, why would Joseph provide her with written evidence of his offer and then trust that Nancy would destroy it unread by others?

If, however, Joseph confronted Nancy with a reprimand for immoral behaviour, she may have been ashamed and taken aback. A proposal of plural marriage would only have surprised her further, and she may have then left in a much more subdued—or ambiguous—manner. As with Sarah Pratt, Joseph may have hoped to both tie himself closer to a prominent leader while also redeeming a wayward relation. (If we grant Nancy the benefit of the doubt, we might conclude that Joseph only cautioned her about closer attachment to Francis Higbee, and urged plural marriage as a better option than pursuing a relationship with Francis. Such a marriage would have protected Nancy and also bound Joseph to Sidney. In either scenario, plural marriage could have been astonishing enough to send Nancy away thinking, rather than shouting.)

"Despite the drama of these events," Van Wagoner tells us, "neither [Nancy] Rigdon [or Sarah] Pratt…stood to gain from exposing the prophet's prurience; none had obvious political motives to hurt him." This is sheer nonsense—if Sarah or Nancy was guilty of sin, as Joseph and others claimed, then they had every reason to undercut Joseph. Political considerations are irrelevant. Having made the decision to share the letter with Francis, Nancy effectively informed Bennett, who knew exactly what use to make of this gift the prophet had handed them. Under the influence of Bennett and Higbee, Nancy had several days to tell and retell her story. Memory is fickle and fluid. If Nancy had been immoral with Higbee, she had a motive to paint the man who could unmask her in the worst light. If Nancy had done nothing wrong, Bennett and Higbee likely did little to encourage her to seek the revelatory guidance to which other plural wives had recourse (see  (needs URL / links)).

Private Visit With Sidney Rigdon

It seems clear that tensions were high between the Rigdons and Joseph before May. Joseph presented his first address to those who would receive the full endowment on May 1, but Sidney and Bennett "were conspicuously absent." On the 11th, Joseph drafted the letter to withdraw Church fellowship from Bennett, "he having been labored with from time to time, to persuade him to amend his conduct, apparently to no good effect." The next day, Joseph "[d]ictated a letter to Elder Rigdon concerning certain difficulties, or surmises which existed" between them. Rigdon replied the following day, but the text of neither letter is available. This exchange of views led to a visit the next night, during which Joseph "walked with Elder Richards to the post office, and had an interview with Elder Rigdon concerning certain evil reports put in circulation by Francis M. Higbee, about some of Elder Rigdon's family, and others; much apparent satisfaction was manifested at the conversation, by Elder Rigdon."

This entry is telegraphic, but it is again significant that Higbee's name is mentioned. Joseph had already taken steps to deal with Bennett, and more would follow.

Bennett's Fall From Grace

The private interview with Sidney Rigdon likely reminded Joseph of Francis Higbee and his past involvement with prostitution. He may also have concluded that Bennett needed to be publicly opposed. At the city council meeting the next day, Joseph

advocated strongly the necessity of some active measures being taken to suppress houses and acts of infamy in the city; for the protection of the innocent and virtuous, and the good of public morals; showing clearly that there were certain characters in the place, who were disposed to corrupt the morals and chastity of our citizens, and that houses of infamy did exist, upon which a city ordinance concerning brothels and disorderly characters was passed, to prohibit such things. It was later remembered that Bennett opposed a city council effort to suppress brothels; if so, it was likely on this occasion, and he doubtless understood it to be the shot across his bow that it was. Within three days, Bennett was encouraged to withdraw from the Church, and forced to resign as mayor.

The remainder of May saw the collapse of Bennett's hopes. The high council cases involving Chauncey Higbee concluded, and Bennett was soon pleading for mercy at the Masonic Lodge he had helped found. By mid-June, he had been publicly shamed and excommunicated, and left Nauvoo on June 21. He traveled to Springfield, where he concluded an arrangement to print anti-Mormon exposés. By prior agreement, the ‘‘Sangamo Journal’’ called for Bennett to "come out NOW." Since Bennett had no other income during this period, it is thought that he was paid for his anti-Mormon letters, of which he had written three before being urged to do so by the press. Bennett had discovered a fifth con: pretending to risk his life writing religious exposés he was urged to write after agreeing to write them for pay.

George W. Robinson and John C. Bennett

If Joseph had ever satisfied Sidney, it did not last. "[I]n company with Bishop [George] Miller, I visited Elder Rigdon and his family, and had much conversation about John C. Bennett, and others, much unpleasant feeling was manifested by Elder Rigdon's family, who were confounded and put to silence by the truth." Miller had been responsible for uncovering Bennett's serial infidelities, and was probably along to back up Joseph's account of Bennett's wicked ways (see  (needs URL / links))}}

Unsurprisingly for such a contested tale, other versions of this visit exist. The most immediate is George Robinson's, who claimed to be present. We recall that he provided Nancy's version of Joseph's proposal, discussed above. His account, however, was not yet written. In evaluating it, we must remember that his statement was not made until July 27—a month after the family meeting, and more than three months after Joseph's discussion with Nancy. During that time, despite all the disclosures made about Bennett's actions and character, Robinson continued to associate with him as a friend. In fact, after having arranged to be paid for his anti-Mormon letters to the ‘‘Sangamo Journal’’, Bennett returned to the Nauvoo home of none other than George W. Robinson. Bennett arrived the day prior to Joseph's family meeting; we cannot ignore, then, the possibility that Robinson's first-person account was distorted or doctored because of his relationship with Bennett, who was immediately on-hand to counter anything Joseph told them.

Robinson's attitude and memory would also have been affected by the charges and rumours swirling around Joseph as Bennett published his exposés, since his letter was written after the publication of four of Bennett's letters.

Our reading of Joseph's meeting with Sidney's family will, then, be greatly influenced by the decisions we make about even this single source. Too many authors, anxious to smear Joseph or tell an exciting tale, have used Robinson (a first hand source, holy grail of historiography) incautiously, without informing their readers of the evidentiary pitfalls which await the unwary. Robinson should not be discarded, but nor should he receive our unbounded trust.

Joseph Meets with the Rigdon Family

Of the meeting, Robinson wrote

[Nancy] told the tale in the presence of all the family, and to Smith's face. I was present. Smith attempted to deny it at first, and face her down with the lie; but she told the facts with so much earnestness, and THE FACT OF A LETTER BEING PRESENT, WHICH HE HAD CAUSED TO BE WRITTEN TO HER, ON THE SAME SUBJECT, the day after the attempt made on her virtue, breathing the same spirit, and which he had fondly hoped was DESTROYED,—all came with such force that he could not withstand the testimony; and he then and there acknowledged that every word of Miss Rigdon's testimony was true.

If Nancy had left their interview in a hostile mood, Joseph would be a fool to meet with the entire family, which again makes that part of the Bennett/Robinson tale implausible. Bennett, unable to appreciate that others might have motives radically different from his own, had no qualms about portraying Joseph as a master of calculation and exploitation. To walk into the family bear trap and deny everything, as Joseph reportedly did, shows naiveté, not calculation.

Robinson saved the greatest part of his ire for Joseph's explanation of the plural marriage offer: "Now for his excuse, which he made for such a base attempt, and for using the name of the Lord in vain, on that occasion. HE WISHED TO ASCERTAIN WHETHER SHE WAS VIRTUOUS OR NOT, AND TOOK THAT COURSE TO LEARN THE FACTS!!!" If accurate, this is strong evidence that Joseph said at least something about Nancy's virtue. As we will see below, Francis Higbee was also almost certainly mentioned. One son remembered Rigdon insisting afterward that Joseph "could never be sealed to one of his daughters with his consent as he did not believe in the doctrine."

It is possible, then, that Joseph's meeting with the Rigdon extended family was a serious miscalculation by the prophet. Confident that Sidney was upset only because he did not understand Higbee's (and, potentially, Nancy's) moral failings, Joseph arrived and was blindsided. Expecting to help parents call sinners to repentance, Joseph was suddenly on trial. Gone was the Nancy ashamed before a prophet's rebuke or astonished at his proposal; in her place stood a woman who could, merely by emphasizing different aspects of their conversation or omitting information about herself, use the truth to lie. Taken aback, Joseph may well have temporized and back-peddled furiously, knowing that the charged situation was ill-suited to persuading the Rigdons to consider his plural marriage teachings as anything but lasciviousness.

The production of his letter would have been one more nail in the coffin, at which point Joseph may have hoped that a frank exposition of the doctrine might soften them. I suspect that he down-played the "marriage" component, and emphasized "sealing" and blessings. This scenario is most consistent with Robinson's version. Joseph ultimately admitted to mentioning plural marriage, but denied doing so with intent to seduce Nancy. Given his earlier denials, those present saw this as clear evidence of deception. Deception implied ill intent. If so, one can sympathize with the Rigdons' situation—many others who were taught about plural marriage under more benign circumstances were stunned and repulsed. This is one plausible reading of the data.

A second approach would read the matter as the History of the Church entry does—the Rigdons were upset, but Joseph's explanations finally reassured everyone. Sidney likely did not accept everything Joseph had to say, but (as when he first encountered the Book of Mormon) would not reject the ideas out of hand without prayer and reflection. In this reading, Joseph left confident that revelation would settle the matter.

The third—and, to my mind, most likely scenario—is essentially a blend of the first two. Joseph arrived into an explosive situation, as described in the first case. He was able, however, to defend his actions and his teachings far more ably than the hapless bumbler portrayed by Robinson and Bennett. Joseph may have left believing that he had done what was necessary to resolve the issue, but doubts lingered. Sidney's angry reaction following the prophet's departure would have decided the issue for any fence-sitters.

Francis Higbee: Post-Bennett

Whatever else happened at the Rigdon household, Joseph seems to have named names. His journal for the following day records that "I held a long conversation with Francis M. Higbee. Francis found fault with being exposed, but I told him I spoke of him in self defense. Francis was, or appeared, humble, and promised to reform." Francis was upset that Joseph has revealed his present—and perhaps past—crimes. Joseph explained that he was placed in a position where he could not protect Higbee without harming himself and the Church. Any humility on Higbee's part was likely short-lived; within a few days he provided Bennett with an affidavit claiming Joseph Smith had told him that Bennett could easily be killed with no one the wiser. This is implausible on two grounds. First, given Joseph's clear antipathy to Higbee, he is the last to whom Joseph would make such a remark "about the time of Bennett's withdrawal from the Church, or a short time before." Secondly, Bennett was never shy about self-preservation, and he returned repeatedly to Nauvoo even after his break with Joseph. Bennett didn't believe the affidavit, and neither should we.

Matters between Joseph and Sidney continued to smoulder. Sidney wrote Joseph, "in the greatest confidence to yourself and for your own eye and no other…I am your friend and not your enemy as I am afraid you suppose. I want you to take your horse and carriage on tomorrow and take a ride with me out to the Prairie…Say not a word to any person living but to Hiram only. [A]nd no man shall know it from me." Even if he could not support Joseph's plural marriage teaching, Sidney strove to repair their relationship.

Either during the family meeting or during the ride, Sidney and family believed Joseph had agreed to stop speaking ill of them. On July 3, George Robinson wrote Bennett. After reporting that Francis Higbee had Joseph's letter to Nancy, he promised to have Chauncey Higbee retrieve it, presumably for Bennett to publish. Outraged, Robinson insisted that Joseph had promised to "take back what he said about us," but reported that Joseph instead announced from the pulpit that "he had agreed to take back what was said, but, on thinking it over, he could not do it, for any man that would suffer Bennett to come into their houses, was just as bad as he." Though Joseph "did not say much about [Francis] Higbee," he did say "that a young man came down to see him the other day, and wanted to know why he came out on him; but…'I have settled all matters with him, and shall not mention his name, for he confessed his sins to me, and begged I would not mention him.' [Added Robinson,] Francis will roar."

Francis seems to have been less committed to Joseph's downfall than his brother or Bennett. On July 6, he purportedly wrote Bennett claiming that Nancy Rigdon would give her affidavit—which she never did. "As it respects my affidavit, sir," wrote Francis,

for God's sake, my sake, and the sake of my people, do not show it to any one on earth, as yet, never, until I give you liberty…I am yet true as death, and intend to stick or die, but you must keep my name back, because I am not ready as yet to leave; and as soon as you bring my name out, they are certain to take my life…

I am torn between presuming this is a forgery by Bennett, and concluding that Higbee was unbalanced. His behaviour does not seem consistent with fear for his life, and Bennett would publish a letter the very next day calling on Higbee and Robinson "to state what they know upon this subject…[for they] can tell some astounding facts in relation to this matter." Bennett feigned fear that "the Danites…[might] murder me," but said nothing of the risk to which he was supposedly subjecting Higbee and Robinson. Bennett would not have scrupled to publish Higbee's affidavit eventually—but, since one never appeared, it seems unlikely that Higbee had given it to Bennett, as the letter claims. Given "Higbee's" anxiety in the letter, it seems unlikely that he would be mistaken. Forgery it is, then.

Nothing was forthcoming from the supposedly eager but frightened Francis. On 22 July, his name appeared on an affidavit sustained by his father's; both insisted that claims about Mormons murdering a Missouri prisoner were unfounded. Bennett would then claim to receive a letter from Higbee about three weeks after the affidavits' publication, in which Higbee wrote "Statements have been forced from several [in Nauvoo]; you have seen mine; but great God! That's all from this child!"

Despite promises—all made, significantly, via Bennett—that he and Nancy had bombshells that would destroy Joseph Smith, Francis Higbee never delivered. He disappears from the narrative, only to reappear as Joseph's determined enemy in 1844. Heber C. Kimball recalled how "[Francis] had an inclination to write that what he published was false. I exhorted him to go and recall what he had said. I afterwards saw him in Cincinnati, when he promised by every thing sacred that he would come home, reform…He said he would study at Cincinnati, for his character was ruined here." Kimball's story is complimented by Robinson, who on September 16, 1842 wrote Bennett that "Frank Higbee [Colonel Francis M. Higbee] has gone to Ohio." One can sense the disappointment in Higbee's performance: "He did not intend to contradict your statements," he assured Bennett, "but he knew of no prisoner killed…Frank is true blue; but, I fear, like some others here, he lacks MORAL COURAGE!!" One sees how Bennett's clique may have worked on Higbee's sense of honor and pride—if he would not act against Joseph, he was branded a coward.

Not coincidentally, the next we hear of Higbee is a letter published in the ‘‘Times and Seasons’’ on Christmas day. Higbee's father asserts that the letter was written "upon the subject of two letters purporting to be written by him to J. C. Bennett and published in his book." Bennett's History of the Saints was published in October, and the letter rebutting it was written by Francis on November 28, from "Cary's Academy, Pleasant Hill." Of the two letters printed by Bennett, Higbee insisted "such a thing has no foundation in truth." Bennett had nothing from him, claimed Higbee, "except the affidavit that fell into his hands."

Higbee is far too modest: the affidavit in which Joseph supposedly told Higbee that Bennett could be easily killed had to be prepared and sworn; it only fell into Bennett's hands because Higbee wished it so. But, he seems to have quickly had second thoughts, and distanced himself from Bennett. That Bennett printed nothing else proves he had nothing else. No stranger to forgery, Bennett did not let an absence of documents deter him. (It is possible, of course, that Joseph or Higbee's parents forged his November confessional letter. This is unlikely, given that Francis never denounced the letter, and given that the letters printed by Bennett are clearly forgeries on forensic grounds.) Francis' only material contribution to Bennett's campaign against Joseph was the affidavit about a murder plot, which was almost certainly false.

We can now draw some firm conclusions. From 1841 onward, Higbee flirted with sin, and when eventually found out, was manipulated and betrayed by his mentor, Bennett. Alternating between tearful remorse and belligerence, he waffled repeatedly between correcting his life and attacking those who exposed him. For a time, he seems to have decided to reform himself. Higbee was upset at Joseph for making his sins known and disgracing him before at least sixty men at the Nauvoo Lodge. He seems to have lost his connection with Nancy, and eventually left town.

Even his commitment to truth-telling at the end of November 1842 was short-lived: by January 1844 he was back in Nauvoo. The old problems had not died away. On January 5, Joseph made a veiled but pointed reference to Higbee's past indiscretions:

Mayor referred to Francis Higbee's testimony. Thought Francis Higbee had better stay at home and hold his tongue, lest rumor turn upon him and disclose some private matters which he would prefer kept hid. Did not believe there was any rumor of the kind afloat, or he could have told some of the names of his informants. Thought the young men of the city had better withdraw from his society, and let him stand on his own merits. I by no means consider him the standard of the city.

The intervening months had made Higbee bolder. "I received a long equivocating letter from Francis M. Higbee," reads Joseph's history, "charging me with having slandered his character and demanding a public trial before the Church. It contains no denial of the charges which he accuses me of having spoken against him, but is full of bombast." Higbee's tendency to vacillate revealed itself. Within the week, Joseph learned that Higbee was going to sue him for $10,000 "for speaking against him." A reconciliation was effected the next day. Francis "had written a slanderous letter concerning me, and said many hard things, which he acknowledged; and I forgave him. I went before the Council and stated that all difficulties between me and F. M. Higbee were eternally buried, and I was to be his friend for ever. To which F. M. Higbee replied, "I will be his friend for ever, and his right-hand man.'"

It was not to be. Higbee may have acquired some of Bennett's talent for dissembling; he certainly cannot have reconciled with Joseph out of fear, for he remained in Nauvoo and would eventually hound Joseph ceaselessly. A month later, Joseph faulted Higbee's intent to appeal a court case to Carthage, believing his intent was "to stir up the mob and bring them upon us." By May, Higbee was suing Joseph again. If Higbee was concerned about his good name, its value had dropped, for he now was demanding only $5,000. In an ironic twist, it was these attacks that led Joseph and other church leaders to report Higbee's actions of the last three years in open court. Higbee's zeal for revenge provided the clues necessary to untangle the Nancy Rigdon affair.

On May 18, 1844, Francis M. Higbee was excommunicated. He was to play a prominent role in the assassination of Joseph and Hyrum.

Stephen Markham's Affidavit

If Francis Higbee was unwilling to provide affidavits about Nancy Rigdon, Stephen Markham was not. Born in 1800, Markham joined the Church near Kirtland, Ohio, in 1837. A faithful member, Markham would later play a key role in rescuing Joseph from an illegal effort to extradite him to Missouri. Fiercely loyal to Joseph, he helped prepare Carthage Jail against possible assault; he left and was not permitted to return, thus sparing him the assault that killed Joseph and Hyrum.

Markham provided an affidavit published in ‘‘The Wasp’’ on July 27, 1843. Several of Bennett's letters had been published, and the Nancy Rigdon charges swirled around Nauvoo. Markham claimed that sometime in 1842,

he was at the house of Sidney Rigdon in the city of Nauvoo, where he saw Miss Nancy Rigdon laying on a bed, and John C. Bennett was sitting by the side of the bed, near the foot, in close conversation with her: [he] also saw many vulgar, unbecoming and indecent sayings and motions pass between them, which satisfied [him] that they were guilty of unlawful and illicit intercourse, with each other.

The reaction was furious. Several Nauvoo citizens published counter-affidavits, claiming that Markham had only testified "to help Smith out of his dilemma." Markham was, they said, "a man of little or no reputation," since he was "a liar, disturber of the peace, and what may justly be termed a loafer." George Robinson insisted that Markham's "character for truth and veracity is not good, and that I could not believe him under oath…I am personally knowing to his lying, and that his character in general is that of a loafer, disturber of the peace, liar, &c." Robinson further insisted that he had been present on the occasion referred to: "Miss Rigdon was then sick, and Dr John C. Bennett was the attending physician." Sidney Rigdon published a refutation, and hired an attorney to sue Markham.

On September 3, an unusual notice appeared in ‘‘The Wasp’’: "We are authorized to say, by Gen. Joseph Smith, that the affidavit of Stephen Markham, relative to Miss Nancy Rigdon, as published in the handbill of affidavits, was unauthorized by him; the certificate of Elder Rigdon relative to the letter, being satisfactory." The editor of the ‘‘Sangamo Journal’’ was sceptical, and declared Markham "putrid and corrupt" for helping Joseph "further his infamous designs." The statement was specific in its phrasing—Joseph did not admit that Markham's affidavit was false, he merely disclaimed responsibility for its publication. This would have been enough to allow the majority of members to disregard it if they chose to do so: it would have been harder to ignore an affidavit which was widely believed to have Joseph's tacit approval.

What are we to make of Markham's affidavit? Was he merely a loyal foot-soldier, willing to perjure himself to save Joseph Smith, and then take the heat when their scheme back-fired? Or, did he honestly see an exchange between Bennett and Nancy which—especially in retrospect when other charges appeared—troubled him, leading him to honestly misinterpret an innocent situation? Or, were Bennett and Nancy enmeshed more tightly than we have thought?

The out-pouring of support for Nancy in the face of the Markham affidavit is striking when compared to the silence which greeted the initial charges against her. Sidney did not swear an affidavit in her support before Markham published his charges; Bennett could not even produce affidavits from Francis Higbee or Nancy about Joseph, much as he wanted them. Sarah Pratt was likewise not defended by charging the prophet and his supporters with slander until decades later. I suspect that Markham made an honest mistake—what he had learned about Bennett and Nancy led him to misinterpret, in retrospect, an innocent medical visit. His false charge persuaded Joseph's enemies that the Prophet really would stoop to anything to avoid having his own crimes revealed.

Joseph distanced himself from the affidavit for two reasons. Firstly, he had no other evidence that Bennett and Nancy were having an affair, while he reportedly had testimony from Bennett and Higbee about Nancy and Francis. Secondly, as the notice indicates, Joseph had what he wanted from Sidney—there was nothing to be gained for the Rigdons, Joseph, or the Church in pursing the issue raised by Markham. By distancing himself from Markham's charge, Joseph could offer an olive branch to Sidney, and attempt to put the issue behind them.

What had Sidney done to placate Joseph? And why did he do it?

Divine Intervention

Joseph's letter to Nancy Rigdon was published by Bennett in the ‘‘Sangamo Journal’’ on August 20. The most striking event in the whole saga occurred the following day. Sidney no doubt stunned the crowd by announcing that "never before had he seen the dead raised; yet this was a thing that had actually taken place in his own family." His daughter Eliza had been gravely ill, and was pronounced dead by the physicians. Eliza suddenly "rose up in bed," and informed her family that God had sent her back to deliver a message, and then she would return to Him. She insisted that "the Lord had said to her the very words she should relate,—and so particular was she in her relation, that she would not suffer any person to leave out a word, or add one."

Eliza called each family member and spoke to them. She told Nancy, "It is in your heart to deny this work, and if you do, the Lord says it will be the damnation of your soul…She said concerning Geo[rge] W. Robinson, as he had denied the faith, the Lord had taken away one of his eye-teeth, and unless he repented, he would take away another. And concerning Dr. Bennett, that he was a wicked man, and that the Lord would tread him under his feet. Such is a small portion of what she related."

Sidney's daughter did not die. After laying as cold "as when laid in the grave" for thirty six hours, she called Rigdon and told him

that the Lord had said to her, if he would cease weeping for his sick daughter, and dry up his tears, that he should have all the desires of his heart; and that if he would go to bed and rest, he should be comforted over his sick daughter, for in the morning she should be getting better, and should get well. That the Lord had said unto her, because that her father had dedicated her to God, and prayed to him for her, that he would give her back again.

When faced with such an account, a skeptic can only marvel at Joseph Smith's extraordinary luck. Not only was a patient declared dead returned to life, but she brought messages which specifically targeted all those who were causing such difficulty. No prophetic charisma was brought to bear, and Rigdon made his own decision to make the events known. The Latter-day Saint who encounters this report will likely conclude that whatever the details of Joseph's interaction with Nancy, which we can only approximate, any fault or act worth of condemnation lay with others, not the prophet.

Sidney was not the only one moved by these events. Five days later, Eliza R. Snow's personal diary reported that Joseph "said he had some good news, viz. that George W. Robinson had declar'd his determination to forsake his evil deeds and return to the church. If he does return, I hope it may be for his soul's salvation: not to act the part of Hinkle and betray the innocent, in the time of danger." Sister Snow's hopes were not rewarded, but her account is a potent argument: it was not produced for public consumption, and one cannot accuse it of being designed for propaganda purposes. Joseph's remark was made in private to intimates who did not need to be persuaded to support him. If Robinson had persevered in his return, we might read his affidavits—which are supposedly so damning—with a great deal more perspective.

Nancy seems to have been likewise persuaded by her sister's message from the Lord. She never again accused Joseph, and even late in life refrained from charging him with any impropriety. Sidney issued a statement two days later in behalf of Nancy and himself:

I am fully authorized by my daughter, Nancy, to say to the public through the medium of your paper, that the letter which has appeared in the ‘‘Sangamo Journal’’, making part of General Bennett's letters to said paper, purporting to have been written by Mr. Joseph Smith to her, was unauthorised by her, and that she never said to Gen. Bennett or any other person, that said letter was written by said Mr. Smith, nor in his hand writing, but by another person, and in another persons' hand writing.

This statement is also carefully crafted. Nancy denied that she gave Bennett permission to publish her letter, which was likely true since she had given the letter to Francis, and Chauncey set out to obtain a copy. Sidney also drew a careful distinction: since Joseph had not written the letter himself (he had used Richards as a scribe) Nancy could legitimately claim that Joseph had not "written" it. This careful parsing of the facts to protect the Church was characteristic of how the confidentiality of plural marriage was protected in Nauvoo. Joseph and others realized that any statement made publicly had to withstand the scrutiny of a hostile and violent anti-Mormon element (see  (needs URL / links) for a more in-depth discussion).

The letter from Sidney continued:

She further wishes me to say, that she never at any time authorised Gen. Bennett to use her name in the public papers, as he has done, which has been greatly to the wounding of her feelings, and she considers the obtruding of her name before the public in the manner in which it has been done, to say the least of it, as a flagrant violation of the rules of gallantry, and cannot avoid to insult her feelings, which she wishes the public to know. I would further state that Mr. Smith denied to me the authorship of that letter.

Nancy denied authorizing Bennett's actions, which was likely true—even Bennett the forger had only produced letters from Robinson and the Higbees indicating Nancy's support. (I suspect she merely wanted the issue to go away.) Sidney's careful hair-splitting again shows in the last sentence, reporting that Joseph "denied to me the authorship." This also was likely true—during the meeting with Rigdon's family, Joseph probably sought to distance himself from the letter, before finally admitting his proposal and teachings. Rigdon does not say that Joseph "denies" (in the present tense) the authorship, only that he "denied" (past tense).

We have already seen that Joseph reciprocated Sidney's nuanced letter by distancing himself from Markham's affidavit. Eliza's message from beyond the grave seems to have been sufficient to settle Sidney's concerns about Joseph—at the least, it prevented an open rupture between the two men. It did not, however, restore Rigdon to Joseph's confidence. The prophet was well aware that Sidney remained skeptical about plural marriage, and he would remain suspicious of his counselor in the First Presidency for the rest of his life. For Joseph, Sidney had faced a great test, and been found wanting.

John C. Bennett and the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith

Related articles:	What was John C. Bennett's role in the events leading up to the death of Joseph Smith? Summary: Bennett's influence on events in Nauvoo continued until Joseph's death. Bennett had at least an indirect role in causing the brothers' death.
	Nauvoo city charter Summary: Follow this to learn about historical and political events that preceded the Nauvoo Expositor issue. The powers granted Nauvoo were not seized by the Saints; they were granted lawfully, and could have been removed lawfully by the legislature. John C. Bennett was a great help in getting the Saints' city granted these powers.
	Joseph Smith and the Nauvoo Expositor Summary: The frustrations of non-Mormons with the Nauvoo city charter and other issues surrounding the Saints (including plural marriage rumors) ultimately led to the publication of the Nauvoo Expositor. The Nauvoo city council's decision to destroy the paper was legal, but lit the fuse that led to Joseph and Hyrum's murder.

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults (Revised) (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1997), 190. ( Index of claims ) George D. Smith, Nauvoo Polygamy: "...but we called it celestial marriage" (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2008), 1, 5, 65, 69-73, 114, 119, 122-125, 230, 243, 274, 309, 429. ( Index of claims , (Detailed book review)) Watchman Fellowship, The Watchman Expositor (Page 3)

Notes